


pour a fine white empathy (over me)

by FandomTrash24601



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: :(, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - The Witcher Fusion, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Death, BAMF Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Blood, Child Abuse, Child Death, Childhood Trauma, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Lingerie, Christmas Shopping, Concussions, Crushes, Crying, Culture Shock, Diary/Journal, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Family History, Food, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Geographical Isolation, Geralt definitely does not, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Abandonment Issues, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Anxiety, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Self-Esteem Issues, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia has PTSD, Hot Chocolate, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, I accidentally created an "Okay?" "Okay" thing sorry, I don't think I do, I mean a lot of them are just me talking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, In a sense, Insecure Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Isolation, Jaskier has a GOOD and LOVING family dammit, Jaskier looked at a sad stinky man and asked if anyone was going to love him, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Patience, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Siblings, Mentioned Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, Mentioned Eskel (The Witcher), Mentioned Lambert (The Witcher), Mentioned Renfri | Shrike (The Witcher), Mentioned Triss Merigold, Pajamas & Sleepwear, Past Child Abuse, Possibly Pre-Slash, Poverty, Pre-Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Pre-Slash, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Protective Siblings, Roach doesn't make an appearance in this one sorry, Sibling Love, Siblings, Sneaking Around, Sneaking Out, Snow, Snow and Ice, Socks, Soft Valdo Marx, Stregobor Being an Asshole (The Witcher), Suicidal Thoughts, THIS IS DISCRIMINATION, Teeth, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Trials, Unconsciousness, Winter, again a lack thereof, all of the following are relatively minor but I'm tagging anyways, and then didn't wait for an answer, but if you cross her she will cut you, but still, but there's subtext, can be read as platonic, can you guess who based on the last two tags, can't I give Jaskier a big heart, do I have anything left to tag?, don't worry it's in the context of hunting, haha hey there's a tag for that?, how are there so many tags, it's not graphic tho, no beta we die like renfri, now for Geralt's shitty mental health!, or a suspicious lack thereof, she's a girlboss without being a massive bitch, shhhh it's my fanfic, that's what isolation will do to a man, the poor boy, why is there no tag for the Grinch, why is there only a big dick tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28291758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomTrash24601/pseuds/FandomTrash24601
Summary: It's Priscilla's idea to climb the mountain; Jaskier couldn't have imagined what follows.Title from Alice Fulton's poem "Where Are The Stars Pristine"
Relationships: Essi Daven & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Priscilla, Jaskier | Dandelion & Valdo Marx
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	pour a fine white empathy (over me)

**Author's Note:**

> This might be a little crakish but I put too much work into this Grinch AU (specifically an AU of the 2000 film starring Jim Carrey) to tag it as crack. Anyway, Geralt is the Grinch and Jaskier is Cindy-Lou Who; the rest of the plot is wibbly-wobbly and everyone's ages have been scrambled to fit my needs. This is set in the 1980s? Ish? When technology was still a little clunky and the recorderphone makes sense.
> 
> Re: the relationship tags--I tagged this Geraskier, but there is no explicit Geraskier in this fanfiction. Jaskier is seventeen and Geralt is more than a century older. I deliberately gave this a pre-slash feel (maybe they get together when Jaskier's like 23 or something idk) but if you came here looking for smooches, you will find yourself bereft.
> 
> RE: THE CONTENT WARNING TAGS--This is appropriately tagged teen and up, but there are very brief and non-graphic mentions of both suicide (description: Geralt is passively suicidal after being stuck on that mountain for a century and says that he would let a mob kill him because he's just too much of a coward to kill himself) and sexual assault (description: a theory is proposed that the reason the Wolf has stayed around so long is that vanished women from Lettenhove have been forced to carry subsequent generations). If you would like to skip the suicide mention, it takes place in the scene where Jaskier goes up the mountain with a recorderphone. The mention starts after the line “Why did you do what you did? Why not pursue the three of them? Pris could’ve led a mob back here. And why save me?” and ends at '“You asked,” he says.' If you would like to skip the sexual assault mention, it takes place in the scene where Jaskier reunites with Priscilla. The entire scene can be skipped (“Christ, Jaskier,” she chokes, sniffling against the side of his face. “I thought you were dead, and it was all my fault we even found the place.” to 'He can’t help but think, as he trudges down the stairs from Priscilla’s second-floor apartment to the street below, that Valdo is some kind of last hope.'). Just know that Jaskier is upset with Priscilla for insinuating insulting things about Geralt.

It’s Priscilla’s idea to climb the mountain.

Not that Jaskier tries very hard to dissuade her, and Essi and Valdo latch on to the idea like a fungus. So even if he’s not a particularly enthusiastic participant, he’s a participant nonetheless. It’s not like he has anything better to do, after all; the Pankratzes have finished their Christmas shopping, and his parents adore his friends. Priscilla could ask for almost anything at all and his parents would say yes.

They leave Lettenhove just after lunch. Jaskier regrettably sacrifices function for fashion, although he pushes Essi to wear something more practical than the sky-blue wool that brings out his eyes. She wrangles herself into a puffy pink monstrosity as if in protest, only a year younger than his seventeen but weak in the face of his silver tongue. Priscilla’s neon orange jacket isn’t much better, but at least Valdo appears to have joined him in the boat of imminent discomfort. His sleek black jacket is possibly even thinner than Jaskier’s.

“Merry Almost-Christmas!” Priscilla chirps as he swings the door open. Essi barges past him to throw herself into Priscilla’s arms with a giggle.

“Merry Almost-Christmas to you too,” he says, sliding out the door and pulling it shut behind him. If he lets too much cold air into the house, his parents aren’t going to be happy.

They won’t be happy if they find out where they’re going, either, but that’s neither here nor there. And how would they find out? Jaskier won’t tell, and neither will Essi.

The streets are packed, Lettenhove bustling with late shoppers. Jaskier smiles and pulls in a crisp lungful of wintery air. It’s scented with fragrances of pine and pie, and only a little bit of body odor from the sheer number of people out and about. There’s no better time of the year than Christmas, in his humble opinion. All the good cheer and the festive spirit that saturates the atmosphere…

“Do you guys have your shopping done yet?” Jaskier asks as they weave through the streets in a single-file line, holding hands with both Essi and Valdo so they don’t get separated. He practically has to shout to be heard over the car horns and hundreds of other speaking people.

Priscilla barks out a short, sharp laugh. “Of course not. I don’t think my family’s even started.”

“Hasn’t—?” Jaskier chokes on thin air. “Your family _ hasn’t started?” _

“When have we ever done anything on time?” she asks, which is quite fair in all honesty. Her entire family is notorious for their procrastination.

Valdo, on the other hand, confirms that his family is almost done with his shopping. He and Jaskier both have gloves on, but Valdo’s hands have always been warm, and Jaskier pretends that he can feel the warmth of them through the gloves. He looks nice enough, with perfect pale skin and dark curls that frame his brooding face just so, but for all his randiness Jaskier’s never done anything more than just hold hands with Valdo. It should probably stay that way, for both of their sakes.

It’s only when they reach the edge of town that Jaskier dares to actually ask about their plans. “So, which one of you apparently knows the way to the Wolf’s lair?”

“I do,” Priscilla crows with an enthusiastic shimmy of her hips.

“Are you sure this time?”

“Oh, come on.” Valdo laughs and bumps Jaskier so hard with his shoulder that they both almost fall over. “We had fun last time!”

“I almost drowned,” Jaskier says flatly, rubbing his hands together. They’re already cold, just as he’d known they’d be.

“But you didn’t,” Essi says in that way that only younger sisters can quite manage.

The hike takes a good couple hours. Jaskier’s hands and feet both go numb before too long, which makes climbing quite difficult. There’s no path for them—they have to make their own. At least he’s behind Priscilla and Essi, and Valdo has it easiest of all. Not that having it easier makes it easy.

He doesn’t truthfully think they’ll find anything except perhaps frostbite. Everyone says that the terrible White Wolf lives in a lair in the mountain, and no one except rebellious teenagers dares to even say his name in Lettenhove, but he could very well be an intricate rumor. Jaskier can’t remember the last time someone saw him, said to have hair whiter than any snow and sickly yellow eyes, his skin a sickly shade to represent his twisted mind. They say he eats rotten garbage, and raw meat, and things like metal and glass. His spine is hunched, his malformed legs bending like those of a wolf. His hands supposedly have claws sharper than those of the fiercest mountain lion.

Sometimes people go up the mountain and don’t come down. It’s the common belief that they don’t come back because the Wolf has devoured them with his wicked fangs, so terribly numerous that he can’t even shut his mouth completely. Those who find him, the rumors say, are not allowed to return to speak of it. He is the thing that all children and adults fear, the creature worse than anything that could be imagined. Still, Jaskier thinks it’s funny that the Wolf might be just that—imaginary.

Just as he’s about to call a stop to the endeavor and demand that they return home before they miss dinner and their parents send search parties after them, Priscilla lets out a shriek that sounds equal parts delighted and horrified.

“What is it?” Valdo shouts from the back.

“I found it, I found it!”

“What?” Jaskier demands, temporarily forgetting all about the way his face has yet to pass through painful tingling to the numb stage of freezing.

Priscilla scrambles up one last little ledge, laughing hysterically. Essi follows, and Jaskier can’t let his little sister potentially face the Wolf without him there to protect her, and Valdo has always had a terrible fear of missing out on anything. So the four of them end up at the Wolf’s front porch, hand in hand.

“Oh my God!” Priscilla is whispering, almost vibrating in place. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

“Maybe we should leave,” Essi says softly.

She’s unusually timid right now, shrinking into Jaskier’s side, and he doesn't blame her. There’s very clearly a red door set into the side of the mountain. Valdo’s hand is tight enough around Jaskier’s that he’s genuinely worried for the future of his fingers.

“It doesn’t look like I’d expected,” Jaskier comments.

“Touch it!” Priscilla urges. “Go on, Jask, touch the door.”

“What? No! Why me?” he demands.

They’re all whispering. Jaskier’s tremors aren’t just from the cold.

“You’re the one who’s found this so anticlimactic,” Priscilla says.

“I did  _ not  _ say that, I just said that it wasn’t what I expected.”

Valdo pushes him forward, the traitor. Jaskier stumbles and almost trips, but regains his footing just before the door. It looks worn. Some of the red might be blood and not paint. His hand, when he raises it to the surface of the door, is shaking badly.

“He’s actually doing it,” Essi gasps.

Jaskier pokes the door and, faster than he’s ever moved in his life, leaps backwards to rejoin the line. Adrenaline is flooding every limb, so at least he’s not cold anymore even if he’s fighting back hysterical giggles. They’re at the home of the White Wolf himself, and Jaskier  _ touched the door. _ He’s got to be the luckiest resident of Lettenhove to ever live. Oh, he’s going to be talking about this for _ generations. _

There’s a sound from off to their side, and the four of them freeze like they’re one entity. No one even dares to breathe as a growl starts up, low and rumbling. It’s purely predatory. Every hair on Jaskier’s body feels like it stands straight up, and he fights a whimper as they all turn their heads—painfully slowly, every muscle made stiff by pure terror—towards the source of the growling.

It’s the biggest man Jaskier’s ever seen. He’s tall, and broad-shouldered, and his hands look like they’re bigger than Jaskier’s face. His hair is long and unbound, falling in lank waves to frame his mythical features. Eyes the color of pure gold, slitted like those of a cat, peer out from beneath lowered, wrinkled eyebrows. His nose is scrunched up in distaste, or perhaps the anticipation of a good hunt. Except he’s already hunted; there’s an entire mountain lion slung over his shoulders, dripping blood down his bare and scar-littered chest.

Jaskier kind of wants to cry, but his entire body is frozen.

The White Wolf bares his teeth and the spell breaks. They are, Jaskier notices distantly as he trips over his own feet in an effort to run, exceptionally sharp-looking. But they’re not the overladen fangs that the stories describe. Not that his observation will matter if he doesn’t make it down the mountain and oh, oh no, the Wolf is dropping the carcass of his prey to better hunt  _ them _ . Jaskier scrambles backwards and finally gets his legs up under him again. He wastes no time in turning and sprinting down the mountain as fast as he can, hoping that at least if he doesn’t make it, Essi will.

It looks likely; Priscilla, Essi, and Valdo are all a good distance ahead of him, none of them having tripped on stupid, cold-numb legs. Maybe the White Wolf will be too distracted by killing Jaskier to try to go after them until they’re too far away. At least, with him behind them, they won’t have to see it.

A rock comes loose beneath Jaskier’s careless feet, and where he’d had balance before he no longer does. He’s falling off a short cliff—no more than ten feet or so to the next snowy platform—rather than simply collapsing in place, but the principal matter is that Jaskier is a clumsy person and that’s quite literally going to be the death of him. His mind is racing as the ground comes towards him with awful speed.

Essi has always been a fast, slippery little thing, so reasonably she should be physically okay. Her mental well-being is an entirely different manner; she’ll have to deal with the aftermath of this nightmare. Priscilla is going to have to live with the guilt of dragging them to the Wolf’s lair in the first place. His parents—goodness, they won’t even have a body to bury.

Then his head hits the ground, and there’s a bright burst of pain before everything goes black.

He doesn’t expect to wake up. He is, therefore, very confused when he drifts back to awareness some time later. The splitting headache is unpleasant but a welcome reminder that he’s alive, although it does make it a little more difficult to figure out what’s going on. He licks his lips and tries to swallow around a dry mouth, groaning weakly. The pieces of the puzzle he has aren’t falling together nicely; he’s so confused.

There’s a warm, broad hand under the back of his head to lift it. In the next moment there’s the rim of a cup at his lips, and he slurps gratefully at the water even if it only makes him colder than he already is. The cup moves away. When he shivers, a blanket is pulled up to cover his body. There’s a comfortable surface beneath him, like a bed made of layered blankets instead of a real mattress. His sodden clothing is gone, replaced by unfamiliar layers, but he can’t bring himself to worry.

“It’s alright,” he hears someone murmur, so falteringly that it almost seems they’ve never spoken such words before. Their low, rumbly voice isn’t familiar. It’s soothing, though, and he sinks back into the blankets with a sigh. “You’re safe here.”

He tips his head towards the voice and cracks his eyes open just a sliver, but there’s a fire backlighting the figure and any identifying characteristics are completely hidden from his view. He doesn’t get to see much beyond that quick glimpse, since his savior quickly puts their hand over his eyes to plunge him back into darkness. The hand not positioned over Jaskier’s eyes moves to stroke through his hair. It ought to be weird, being touched like this by someone he doesn't know, but it’s not. Maybe it’s the pain.

It doesn’t take long for sleep to find him again.

When he wakes up, he’s absolutely freezing. Whatever fire had been lit before has gone out, and the winter chill has decided to launch a campaign against his very bones. His first conscious action is to whine rather pitifully and curl up into a ball, but that only moves him from his marginally-warm space in what’s definitely a blanket pile instead of a mattress, and he whines again. His head still hurts.

Jaskier scrubs a sleep-clumsy fist at his eyes to wipe the crumbs from them before he bothers trying to pry his frozen lashes apart. His mind has been made slow by both sleep and injury, but he’s frantically trying to put together what he knows. They’d been climbing the mountain, trying to find the White Wolf’s lair. They’d succeeded. And then… Then the Wolf himself had been there, covered in blood and snarling, and they’d run. Jaskier had fallen.

His eyes fly open as he lurches upwards, ignoring the way that vertigo makes his head spin. Visible puffs betray his wild breathing as he takes quick stock of his surroundings. One crude firepit to his right, his clothes strewn around it. One beat-up armchair a ways to his left, the fabric well-worn and the stuffing poking out in several places. There’s a couple milk crates stacked sideways beside it to create a kind of side table, the crates filled with beat-up books. The cave tunnels further into the mountainside from this one room, hiding the rest of the Wolf’s lair from Jaskier’s view.

He sighs shakily and tries not to cry. So this is the end? Spared to be sacrificed at some later time? He’d think the dread would make him taste awful, but anyone who eats garbage hardly has a sophisticated palette.

Footsteps echo down the hallway. Jaskier bites his tongue, but the tears come anyway; he doesn’t want to live like this for a moment longer. He’d rather have the Wolf snap his neck and get it over with. But if he’s been kept alive this long, then something so quick and merciful isn’t in his future.

There’s a stifled growl as the Wolf himself—bloodless, this time—rounds the corner into the cave where Jaskier is, but the Wolf doesn’t bother to hide the way his face scrunches up into a snarl. “Clothes,” he snaps gruffly.

Jaskier just stares, baffled.

This time the Wolf really does growl, and Jaskier flinches and shakes in the nest of cold blankets. Will the Wolf tear his throat out with his teeth? Or does he have a blade somewhere?

“Clothes,” the Wolf repeats. “Your clothes. Put them on and get out.”

“What?” Jaskier breathes through a tight throat.

The Wolf clenches and unclenches his hands, balling them into fists that Jaskier eyes with great trepidation. There are no claws to be seen, but they could be retractable. The Wolf’s words are sharp and short when he repeats himself. “Your clothes are dry. Get out of my house.”

“You aren’t going to kill me?” Jaskier squeaks.

The Wolf snarls and vanishes down the corridor he came from, audibly gnashing his very scary teeth. Jaskier thinks he can feel his pulse in his thick tongue, he’s so frightened. There’s no way the Wolf is just letting him go, is there?

He scrambles out of the ratty old clothes he’d been put into and dons his own clothing, wincing as he does. They may be dry, but they’re terribly cold. Once that’s done he stands, shivering, next to the pile of blankets he’d slept in last night. The door is right there. He could leave— _ should _ leave. The Wolf even told him to. But why?

Jaskier has always been too curious for his own good. Instead of walking out the door, he takes careful steps further into the cave, some foolish confidence growing with each inch he progresses. He’s inside the Wolf’s cave, further than anyone’s ever been and lived to tell. One more step couldn’t hurt, right? And then another?

The Wolf is in a cave pocket about the same size as the one Jaskier woke up in, similarly lit by an oil lamp. Unlike that one, this place is saturated with the smell of blood. There’s weapons hanging on the walls, and a stained table that looks much like a butcher’s. Jaskier feels all the blood drain from his face. People like him don’t walk out of places like this.

“What,” the Wolf growls in a voice so low Jaskier almost doesn’t hear it, “do you want?” He whirls around with a sword raised. The point of it, metal shimmering in the low light, comes to rest perfectly in the hollow at the base of Jaskier’s spasming throat. Slitted eyes take him in disdainfully, too-sharp teeth exposed to the air around them. “Here to stare into the face of fear? To take a good look?” The sword pushes forward, and Jaskier moves back accordingly until he hits the rough wall and can move no further. His breath comes in shaky little gasps as furious spittle gathers at the corner of the Wolf’s lips.  _ “Here’s your look.” _

Jaskier looks.

It’s freezing, but the Wolf has bare feet and blueish toes. His pants are too short and so terribly patched that Jaskier’s not even sure what the original fabric was, yet despite the patching they’re hardly more than a breath away from falling apart. The shirt is in much the same condition. The Wolf has fine, strong cheekbones, but they’ve been accentuated by obvious hunger. His hair is decidedly unkempt, although not necessarily filthy. If Jaskier ignores the sword—as difficult a task as that is—the Wolf looks more like a victim than a predator.

“I wanted to ask you why you spared my life,” Jaskier whispers, hating the way that his voice breaks. There are old tears frozen on his cheeks; he has to fight against new ones in an effort to keep his dignity.

Something wavers in the Wolf’s piercing eyes. “What do they say?”

“What?”

“The people.” The Wolf jerks his head in the direction of the door, and the town far beyond it. “Lettenhove. What do they say?”

“About you?”

The Wolf growls. Jaskier thinks it's affirmative, and tries to consider how he can put Lettenhove’s general sentiments towards the Wolf without finding himself skewered. He sucks in shaky breaths and licks his lips, feeling them chap immediately in the icy air.

“They—” He clears his throat. “They say you eat rotten garbage, and glass and metal, and uh, and raw meat.”

“Human.”

“Yes. They also say you’re not. Human, that is.” Jaskier swallows hard. “Are you?”

The Wolf growls again, this time threateningly. A small gesture, and the sword presses a little closer.

“You know what, it doesn’t matter,” Jaskier says quickly. “Doesn’t matter at all. I’ll—I think I’ll take your advice and leave, now.” He shimimes sideways, out from under the tip of the sword, and backs slowly into the hallway. “Thank you for your hospitality. It’s been a pleasure, truly. Merry Christmas!”

The Wolf snarls at this last bit. Jaskier squeaks and flees from the Wolf’s curled lips and bared fangs with as much dignity as he can muster, not quite running but speedwalking with an intensity that leaves his legs aching after only a few steps. His stomach is knotted up in his chest, visions of those sharp teeth playing before his open eyes.

He opens the door and is smacked in the face by such a brutal gale of frigid wind that he staggers backwards, gasping for the air that had been pulled from his lungs. The wind screams as if preemptively mourning him. If he leaves the Wolf’s lair now, he won’t make it down the mountain.

When a barely-warm figure takes a place behind him, Jaskier shivers with fear. He’d run if his feet weren’t rooted to the ground; freezing to death sounds more peaceful than becoming the next inhabitant of the Wolf’s butcher table. It would definitely hurt less.

“I, uh…” Jaskier swallows hard. “I’m not going to make back to Lettenhove in this weather.”

The Wolf takes stock of the screaming winds and heavy clouds that denote an imminent storm. Lettenhove glimmers warmly beneath a steely sky at the base of the mountain, separated from him by countless trees and winding, snow-cloaked crags. It’ll take several hours to get down the mountain, and if the temperature alone doesn’t finish Jaskier off then he’ll definitely die after the incoming storm blinds him. He braces himself tremulously for such a fate, overly aware of the teeth in the body behind him.

“No, you won’t.” The Wolf is silent for a beat and then growls, irritated. “Fuck.”

“So what—What do I do?”

The Wolf snarls and shoulders his way past Jaskier, stepping unfazed into the frozen weather. Jaskier feels a pit form in his stomach at the sight, a stark reminder of just who—or  _ what _ —he’s dealing with. The Wolf is still barefoot. His feet look normal, but they can’t be, because if they were normal feet they’d have fallen off by now.

Jaskier inches outside after a pause, pulling the door shut behind him. The Wolf barely spares him a glance before he’s walking away. Confused and more than a little overwhelmed, Jaskier follows without thought. He hadn’t been told to stay, after all, and the sooner he starts down the mountain the greater the chance that he might, maybe, get back to Lettenhove alive.

But this path isn’t familiar, so after only a minute or so of walking Jaskier asks, “Uh, Mister Wolf, where are we going?”

The Wolf doesn’t answer. Only seconds later, though, they round a corner that hides a vast dumpyard. Garbage bags on top of garbage bags on top of garbage bags mar the landscape like a moldy stain. Some kind of guilt floods Jaskier’s guts; he’d known rationally that the dumpyard was on the mountain, but it’s different to actually see the waste that his town produces. When the Wolf steps onto the small mountain of garbage with sure feet, Jaskier takes a fortifying breath and follows him.

He’s panting by the time they reach the dumping pipe, having almost tumbled off of the garbage pile and the mountain itself multiple times. The Wolf’s steps hadn’t faltered even once. He stands at the top of the pile with his arms crossed, scowling, and waits for Jaskier to scramble up the unsteady heap.

“Inside,” the Wolf grunts, gesturing to the large pipe with his head.

“In—?” Jaskier’s jaw opens and closes soundlessly. “What?”

“Get inside the pipe.”

Jaskier eyes the huge metal tube warily. He could probably crawl all the way back to Lettenhove inside the pipe, although being pelted with garbage during the multi-hour scramble won’t be fun. At least he’ll be alive.

He can picture his homecoming already, the surety of his death fading away. Essi will cry and launch herself at him and refuse to let go; they’ll probably sleep in the same bed tonight. His parents will sob and throw themselves at him too, and he’ll barely have to open his mouth to get what he wants for at least the next week straight—if they don’t kill him for climbing the mountain in the first place, that is. Priscilla might faint. Valdo will definitely have to sit down, and will probably cry at least a little.

“Right,” he breathes, trying to psych himself up. It’s not particularly hard when faced with the other options of staying on the mountain with the Wolf or dying on his way down, so he puffs out a steaming breath and hauls the garbage chute open. He gets halfway inside, has a brief crisis, and then mutters, “Right,” as decisively as he can through a chattering jaw and climbs the rest of the way inside. His whole body is cold enough that it’s stinging.

He looks back over his shoulder, his lower lip pinched between his teeth. The Wolf stands at the entrance, a formidable figure that blocks the little available light from permeating the chute. His face is entirely unreadable.

“Curl up,” the Wolf suggests nonsensically.

“What should I tell them when I get back to town?”

For a long time, the Wolf doesn’t answer. “Whatever,” he grunts at last.

Jaskier nods. “Thank you,” he breathes softly, feeling greatly like he’s just ducked a great swing from Fate’s clawed hands.

The Wolf grimaces and slams the chute shut. For a moment Jaskier sits in pure darkness, and then there’s a great rushing  _ whoosh  _ and Jaskier is being sucked through the great tubes at a dizzying speed. He dazedly manages to recognize what the Wolf’s advice had pertained to, and curls up into as secure of a lump as he can. There’s no use in him getting back to Lettenhove if he’s bashed his skull open in the garbage chutes.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when his bruised body tumbles onto the icy cobbles of his familiar town. He’d rather like to just lay there for a while, but the temptation of warmth is too great and there’s a crowd forming even as he pushes himself to trembling elbows. Shaken up, he can’t quite bring himself to look at them all.

“It’s the Pankratz boy!” someone gasps. “He’s not dead!”

A riotous wave of sound sweeps through the crowd, and although he flinches away from the hands that wrap themselves around him, they don’t loosen. He’s hauled to his feet like a trophy to be shown off, to be  _ ooh _ -ed and  _ ahh _ -ed at until their breath has fogged his shine. There’s something deeply uncomfortable fluttering in his chest. Numb with cold and shock, he can’t bring himself to protest as a good third of the crowd bundles him up in their middle and rushes towards his home. When his feet catch on the cobbles to trip him, the countless hands just pull him up again and keep pushing him forward.

“How did you live?”

“You saw the Wolf?”

“Was he really like the rumors say?”

“Were there any skeletons in his lair?”

There are too many questions coming at him from all angles, and they only make him more dizzy than he already is. All at once the sound and the smells and sights are pulling in to compress him until he’s breathless; he’s nearly knocked off of his feet by a burst of irrational yearning for the Wolf’s silent mountaintop. It’s almost funny that their superstitions about discussing the Wolf have vanished in the face of a victim’s return, except it’s not funny at all.

_ Whatever, _ the Wolf had said. Like it wouldn’t matter.

He tries to open his mouth, but nothing comes out. His chest is tight. All the words he wants to say have been blocked by his thick tongue and slow lungs. It’s probably for the better; he doesn’t know what he’d say even if he could speak. If he could speak of the way that the Wolf hadn’t laid so much as a hand on him, how he looks like a struggling human more than a monster, he thinks he would. But if he’s more human than man, then that makes him easy to defeat. Lettenhove might just send a mob up the mountain. So does he speak of saliva-dripping fangs and clawed hands, craft an elaborate fairytale of a daring escape?

The thought sits poorly.

Admittedly, all thoughts are sitting poorly right now. The hands are still on his body, too tight, and he wants to cry and shake them all off but he’s too weak to do so.

“Jas!” Essi screeches, pushing through his entourage to throw herself at him. The hands let go so he can catch her, and they sink to the slushy ground wrapped in a tight embrace. His parents hit the ground without hesitation only a moment later, throwing themselves onto the pile. Essi’s tears are burning his skin, and he can’t feel his parents’ tears but he can hear and feel them both sobbing. “Oh, Jas, I thought you’d  _ died _ . You—When we got away, we turned around and you weren’t there. I tried to go back but they wouldn’t let me. Said I’d die too, I—”

“Essi, Essi, shh,” he whispers against her temple, rocking her like they’re little children again and she’s had a nightmare. “It’s alright.”

The crowd disperses as his family corrals him inside on trembling limbs. He has to lean on Essi for support, his head spinning at the world around him. None of it feels real. The blessed warmth, the twinkling Christmas lights, the relieved sniffling of his family—all of it exists far beyond where Jaskier is.

They bring him to his room. His mother kisses his forehead and tells him to get dressed, says that she’s going to go make him some hot cocoa. He can come down to the kitchen to get it or drink it in bed, whatever he’d like. She’ll make him his favorite dish for dinner tonight.

“You should be mad at me,” Jaskier says through lips that belong to a stranger.

“We are,” his father says. “But I think your experiences have been punishment enough.”

Once they’re gone, Jaskier moves to his dresser on sensationless feet. He strips mechanically even as he shivers hard enough to make unbuttoning his jacket and pants near-impossible. At least he doesn’t feel cold anymore, even if he doesn’t feel much of anything at all. Underwear is pulled up, and then sweatpants, and then thick woolen socks. He stands and stares into the mirror hung above his dresser, eyes roaming his bare chest for any signs of what’s just happened. He walked into the Wolf’s den and came out alive—shouldn’t that leave a mark? But his skin looks just the same as ever, aside from being pale and peaked with gooseflesh. He pulls on a long-sleeved shirt and then a bulky sweater, and even a hat and gloves because he’s still cold. It’s all far more than the Wolf has to protect himself with.

He makes it downstairs on weak legs, leaning heavily against the bannister for support. Essi helps him to the kitchen table where he lets his gaze meander along the swirling grain. There’s a pressure against the inside of his diaphragm, pressing until he almost feels like he’s choking. He ignores it.

“What happened?” Essi asks softly. “If you don’t mind.”

“I woke up on the floor, inside the caves he lives in,” Jaskier hears himself say. “My clothes were laid out by a dead fire. I was in his clothes, I think. He told me to put my clothes back on and get out. But with the storm coming, we realized that I wasn’t going to make it down the mountain alive. So he brought me to the dumpyard and put me in the garbage chute.” His mother sets a steaming Santa mug down on the table, and he traces the line of Santa’s beard. “Did you guys know that the chute could send things both ways? I didn’t.”

Essi hums thoughtfully, watching with red-rimmed eyes as he sips the too-hot cocoa. “I didn’t get a good look at him. Is he like the rumors say?”

Jaskier shakes his head as he clutches the scalding ceramic in an effort to try and draw sensation back to his hands. “No. He looks human, aside from the white hair and weird eyes. No hunched spine, or wolf-like legs, or claws. At least, not as far as I’m aware. He’s got a freaky tolerance for the cold, though; he barely wore scraps, and his feet were bare the entire time.”

“Because he’s a monster,” his mother says stiffly, coming around the table to wrap him in a tight embrace. “But you’re alive, and that’s all that matters now.”

He prickles at the word  _ monster  _ and settles for clutching the mug a little tighter.

“Yeah,” he mumbles into his next sip. The weight of his mother on his back is oppressive. “That’s all that matters.”

The flavor of the cocoa turns over when he’s about two-thirds of the way done, cloying as it clings to his tongue. He frowns and pushes the mug away.

“I’m going to take a nap,” he says, hoping that it will be enough to drive the fog from his mind. “Wake me up for dinner?”

“Of course,” his mother says. “Of course.”

So he makes his way upstairs with limbs that ache and climbs into bed fully-clothed. He burrows as far under the covers as he can, until all that’s visible is his eyes, and waits impatiently to warm up. He can tell rationally that he’s not cold anymore, but there’s something in his bones that he doesn’t know how to describe using any other word. He wants it to go away.

From his window, he can see the mountain in the distance. The Wolf is somewhere up there. It’s cold, and he has no shoes and no decent clothes and—probably—no way to make a good meal. All he has is a barely-functional chair, two milk crates of books, and a pile of blankets. Does he even have a mattress? Was Jaskier in what passed as his bed?

Tears spring sharply to his eyes and he watches the mountain blur. How awful it is that he’s warm and safe in his own bed, dressed in warm clothing, with a loving family downstairs and a warm meal cooking on the stove. What kind of condition is the Wolf in now? Has he at least wrapped his feet in one of those blankets? There’s no one who cares for the Wolf the way that Jaskier’s entire family is caring for him now.

He slides into uneasy dreams of howling winds and sorrowful golden eyes.

Essi wakes him up with a hand on his shoulder, and he sits up so fast that he almost falls out of bed. It’s cold outside of his blankets. His head still hurts from when he hit it in his initial fall, and rocketing through the garbage chute didn’t make it any better. He probably has a concussion and shouldn’t have slept, but he didn’t die so he thinks he’s fine.

“Dinner’s ready.”

He stumbles downstairs, still bundled up like he’s about to leave the house, and settles down at the dinner table like the night is completely ordinary. Like he hasn’t just had his world torn completely apart and patched back together. His stomach doesn’t care about any traumatic paradigm shifts, though, and reminds him quite fiercely that he hasn’t eaten since lunch the day before. He tears through a plate and a half before he’s full.

“I’m going to go back to bed,” he says when he’s determined that his stomach can take no more. His head is still fuzzy, and his chest aches.

“Alright, dear.”

He hugs his father, and his sister, and his mother, and before he goes upstairs his mother runs her hand through his hair to push it back and presses a great big smacking kiss to his forehead. Jaskier almost falls over.

_ It’s alright. You’re safe here. _

A warm hand running through his hair, cording gently through the strands. A blanket being pulled up when he shivers. A figure backlit by fire, stumbling over reassurances.

How had he forgotten that brief period of wakefulness in the night? When the Wolf had—had  _ sat by his side _ to take care of him?

He thinks of the Wolf holding the sword to his neck, how it hadn’t even broken the skin. He thinks of how the sword had only been raised when Jaskier didn’t do as asked and leave. He thinks of the pause before  _ Whatever  _ and how defeated the word had sounded.

He bursts into tears.

His mother panics, fluttering around him and making soft sounds of distress. Essi starts to sniffle too. His father shifts awkwardly in the corner, never having been particularly competent when it comes to emotion.

“I’m fine,” he hiccups when his mother keeps on asking him what’s wrong. “I’m just tired.”

“You’ve had a long twenty-four hours,” his mother croons. “It’s a miracle you’re still alive; of course you’re tired.”

He staggers to his room, still weeping, and collapses into bed. The sun has set rapidly and all that’s visible of the mountain is a faint black outline against the ever-darkening sky. He feels an ache beneath his breastbone as it fades from view. Is the Wolf staring down at Lettenhove, thinking of him? Probably not. But—The way he spoke. When was the last time he had a conversation with anybody, if ever? Jaskier thinks that the Wolf’s solitude means he’ll be remembered.

There comes a time when he drifts back to consciousness, stumbling out of a dreamless stupor. The room is dark. The house is asleep. He stares out the window and lets the ache in his chest spread to every limb, marinating in it.

It’s an easy decision to creep out of bed and down the stairs, socked feet slipping silently over the floor. After so long he can make hot cocoa in his sleep, and once that’s been poured into a thermos he moves to the fridge. There’s leftovers there, and he gets a portion all the way into the microwave before he stops to think about what he’s doing.

Is he really going to climb the mountain in the middle of the night to deliver warm food and drink to the Wolf after being historically lucky to escape with his life the first time?

Yes. Yes he is.

He stops the microwave with a second left and dishes the food into another thermos before fastening a fork to the thermos with a rubber band. As he washes the dishes he’d used and puts them away, he lets the food and drink cool just a little; he doesn’t want his parents knowing where he’s gone. They’d never let him leave the house again.

He slips into thick boots and a thick jacket, refusing to make the same mistake as last time. Making it down from the mountain once only to die of hypothermia a second time would be really embarrassing. Then he gathers up the thermoses and tucks them beneath his jacket so they’ll stay a little warmer a little longer. But he can’t quite bring himself to leave the house with his own feet so protected, knowing that the Wolf’s will be bare.

He grits his teeth, toes off his boots, sets the thermoses down, and creeps upstairs to his parents’ bedroom. His father is getting a new pair of well-knitted wool socks for Christmas, and an old—but perfectly usable—pair will soon be thrown out. Who’ll notice if the pair disappears a little early? They’ll just think the socks were lost amongst all the other clothes they own. The trick, though, is getting the door open and closed silently, and he barely dares to breathe as he does so. He’ll have no excuse if his parents wake up.

Except they don’t, and he escapes their room without them ever stirring. Each of the thermoses now goes inside a sock to make it easier to carry all three deliveries, and he slips his shoes back on with a pounding heartbeat. This very well may be the stupidest idea he’s ever had, although he did at least think to bring a flashlight.

The streets are totally empty, even the late-night shoppers tucked into bed a long time ago. No one is awake to notice Jaskier slipping through the streets of Lettenhove, but he sticks to the shadows anyways; it makes him feel just a little less nervous.

He eyes the entrance of the garbage chute dubiously, but he’s certainly not hiking in the dark. The food and drink would be cold by then, for one. He’d never make it back before his parents woke up, for another. So he sighs and makes sure the thermoses are secure before climbing into the garbage chute and curling into a ball like the Wolf had advised earlier.

The chute spits him out into the massive pile of garbage bags from earlier, and he rolls down several before coming to a stop. He hopes that none of the bags he’s landed on have anything gross in them, but it’s likely.

“Eugh,” he grunts, struggling to clamber down from the pile into fresh, crunching snow. The blizzard had hit hard while Jaskier was napping, but it hadn’t lasted for very long and had left a thick layer of glittering snow over the landscape.

At least it hadn’t been a very long walk, and even without their old footprints Jaskier is able to navigate his way back to the Wolf’s home without too much trouble. Each step makes his stomach twist with just a little more anxiety. Who’s to say that the Wolf’s mercy wasn’t a one-time thing?

Well, he’s already here.

He knocks on the door and waits, heart thudding painfully. There’s movement from inside, and Jaskier’s stomach lurches into his throat just as the door swings open. The Wolf has his sword again, his face twisted into a nightmarish snarl as the blade comes to rest against the side of Jaskier’s throat.

“Good evening,” Jaskier croaks. “Morning? What is time, anyway?”

“What do you want?” the Wolf growls. “Didn’t think humans were normally this stupid.”

It’s the most words Jaskier’s heard him say at once. He takes a deep, lung-searing breath and says, “I brought you food. And a warm drink.”

Slowly, still scowling, the Wolf lowers his sword and steps just far enough to the side that Jaskier can squeeze past him. Jaskier has to brush against him to do it, and feels a thrill at the contact. He’s warmer than Jaskier had anticipated.

Jaskier unzips his jacket with shaking hands and pulls out the sock-wrapped thermoses. “Here. Uh, this one has my mom’s lasagna casserole. The other one has hot cocoa. They should still be hot, since I took the chute. Oh, and I brought socks. They’re an old pair of my dad’s, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”

The Wolf has shut the door and stands, bewildered, in the light from the oil lamp. There’s a book in the seat of the old, battered chair, nestled in a ratty blanket; he hadn’t been asleep.

“Why?” the Wolf demands gruffly.

“What do you mean?”

The Wolf gestures at him, looking flustered. “Why?” he repeats more intensely.

“Because you saved my life,” Jaskier says softly. “You could have killed me, or even just left me to die. But you didn’t. You—” He stops and sighs, embarrassment flushing his cheeks but no more than the chill does. “I remember your hand in my hair. You were kind.”

The Wolf’s face ripples as he scowls at the unlit firepit. It’s freezing, even inside, and the Wolf is still dressed in the same rags with the same bare feet. Jaskier’s toes have started to burn in sympathy.

“A dream.”

“I don’t think so. But even if it was…” He holds out the thermoses. “Take them?”

The Wolf does reach out, hesitantly, like he’s worried that this is all a joke and Jaskier’s going to snatch the thermoses away at any moment with a harsh cackle. Like he’s not sure if he’s reaching into a bear trap or not, and is dreading the bite of metal teeth. It hurts to see.

The socks find their way quickly onto the Wolf’s feet. He stares at them in childlike wonderment, wiggling his toes. Jaskier wants terribly to ask how long it’s been since the Wolf wore socks but knows that it would be wiser to keep his mouth shut, so he sits down in the pile of blankets and carefully doesn’t-watch the Wolf eat. Just like gaining the trust of an animal, he thinks a little hysterically.

One careful bite finds its way into the Wolf’s mouth, and then another, and then he’s scarfing down the food like he’s never eaten before in his life. The cocoa follows in much the same way. At long last, the thermoses are set down on the ground between them. Something not unlike trepidation settles over Jaskier like a cloak.

He looks up just in time to see Geralt lick at his mouth like a pleased cat. His eyes, just as feline, bore into Jaskier. They sit in silence for a long time. The lamplight flickers and casts long, dancing shadows where it doesn’t cast orange light.

“Thank you,” the Wolf says slowly.

“Of course. It’s the least I could do. I—” He sighs as he tries to figure out how to phrase this. “I think you get a bad rap. The rumors I’ve heard about you aren’t...nice. I was prepared for a savage beast that was more animal than human, but you’re nothing at all like that.”

“That you’re aware of.”

“If you were anything like the rumors say, I’d be dead,” Jaskier challenges him. He glances down at his folded hands and then up at the Wolf’s severe face. “What’s your name?”

The Wolf looks away, a pale pink stain spreading across his cheeks.

“Do you...Do you not know?” Jaskier asks, horrified.

“Been here a long time,” the Wolf says.

“How long?” Jaskier can’t help but breathe.

“Been here a long time,” the Wolf repeats.

“Okay,” Jaskier says, feeling like a rug’s just been pulled from beneath his feet. “Okay. Do you at least remember what letter your name started with? I know a lot of names.”

“I…” The Wolf frowns at his feet. “G, I think. A  _ guh  _ sound.”

_ “Guh,” _ Jaskier says thoughtfully. “Hmm. Just stop me if something sounds familiar.”

“What?”

“I’m going to try and help you remember what your name is.”

The Wolf blinks at him. “Why?”

“Because I want to.”

The Wolf stays silent, looking at him with those golden eyes, and so Jaskier clears his throat and starts speaking. “Gabriel, Gunner, Gerardo—” The Wolf’s face twitches. “Gordon, Gareth, Garret, Geralt—”

“Geralt,” the Wolf blurts.

Jaskier smiles delightedly, a thrum of victory humming over his skin. “That’s your name?”

“It… Yes.” Geralt looks shocked.

“Well, Geralt—” Jaskier smiles. “—it’s nice to meet you. I’m Jaskier.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says. His lips twitch. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“My parents don’t know that I’m here.” Jaskier glances towards the book on the chair, a little curious about what it is. “I’ll have to get back before they wake up.”

Something in Geralt’s face shutters, and he grunts.

“I’ll be back,” Jaskier promises.

“When?” Geralt sneers, turned scornful. “In the night, like a secret? Just stay in Lettenhove.”

“But you don’t deserve to be up here all alone,” Jaskier protests, hating the way his throat tightens to break his voice. “You don’t deserve this.”

“Says who?” Geralt launches to his feet, teeth bared. “Some boy from Lettenhove who’s known nothing but comfort? You don’t know anything.”

“Well that’s rude,” Jaskier breathes. He has to fight to keep his face even.

_ “I’m _ rude.” Geralt’s chest heaves. “I’m the White Wolf on the mountain.”

“So you are.” Jaskier gets slowly to his feet and nods, stooping down briefly to scoop up the thermoses. “I’ll see myself out, then. Enjoy the socks.”

The chute is just as brutal going down the second time, although Jaskier knows what to expect now. He tumbles onto the cobblestone with a stifled grunt. The sky is dark, the stars mostly invisible through the light pollution, and he’d like to lay here a little longer but every moment on the street is a moment that he could be caught. How would he explain his presence near the garbage chute?

He pulls himself to his feet and heads home. Although his eyes are burning, he blinks fiercely to keep the tears at bay. He’s not sure where he went wrong, but he knows he’s going to find out. No matter how prickly, Geralt doesn’t deserve to live cold and alone the way he’s living now. The way he’d scarfed down the food and drink so quickly, how he’d stared at his socked feet—it’s all so terribly sad.

After he’s toed off his shoes and hung up his jacket, he washes the thermoses and puts them away. No one will ever have to know that they left the house, much less who ate out of them. It’ll be his and Geralt’s secret.

_ Geralt. _

The Wolf has a name, one that he’d forgotten because of how long he’d been on the mountain. The very thought aches. How long does someone have to be alone before they forget such an old part of themselves? How old is he, really? Despite his white hair he doesn’t look like he could be older than forty, which is a shame because Jaskier’s only seventeen no matter how old Geralt is.

At least he knows the name, now. He can do something with that.

The next morning dawns bright and early, and Jaskier whines into the sunlight before rolling over and trying to go back to sleep. It’s useless, though. He’s awake. There’s no use in staying in bed; he can go to see Priscilla and Valdo today, let them know that he’s really alive and that he doesn’t blame them for running away from the Wolf.

“Jas,” Essi says when he gets downstairs. She’s sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, and he can’t sense either of their parents moving around elsewhere in the house. It feels like there’s an intervention coming. “Where did you go last night?”

“Uh,” Jaskier says.

“You think I’m stupid?” She narrows her eyes. “So soon after almost dying and you leave the house in the middle of the night? Where did you go?”

“I…” He sighs and sinks into the seat across from her. “You need to promise me you won’t get too mad.”

“Hmm.” She narrows her eyes.

“I heated up some leftovers, made some cocoa, and brought it to the Wolf.”

Essi chokes on her coffee and then sputters incoherently, wordless in her fury. When she’s finally regained her speaking ability, all she can say is a low, “You  _ what?” _

“I brought food to the Wolf,” Jaskier says in challenge, lifting his chin.

_ “Why?” _

“Because he’s more human than rumor would have us believe,” Jaskier snaps, scowling. “He’s been on that mountain for so long that he’d forgotten his own name, Essi. I had to throw a list of names at him until he recognized one as his.”

“And what, pray tell, is the White Wolf’s name?”

“Geralt,” Jaskier says. “I’m going to figure him out, Essi.  _ Someone  _ has to know how he got there in the first place.”

“What does it matter?” Essi says angrily. “From what I hear, he’s clearly not human.”

“But he was once!” Jaskier almost shouts it, but manages to catch himself just in time and lowers his voice to a harsh whisper. “He had to have been; he just appeared one day, fully formed, like he’d been  _ made  _ inhuman.”

Essi makes a disgusted sound and stands from the table. She stares down at him with all the scorn in her body and says, “I’m not going to tell mom and dad. But if you ever come home with so much as a single bruise on you, I swear on my life—”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Jaskier says. He waves her off, hurt by her attitude but not willing to show it. Why can’t she understand what Jaskier’s saying? Why is she so blind? Is he the only one in this town looking at the world through open eyes? “I can’t promise the chute won’t leave me with any, but do what you want.”

Essi huffs and storms away.

Jaskier pinches his eyebrows to ward off a headache that’s already well on its way. He’ll wait until his parents are up, he tells himself, so that he can tell them where he’ll be. Then he’ll grab his father’s old audio recorder and, after letting Priscilla and Valdo see that he’s alive, get started on his hunt for information. The sooner he can unearth something that can help Geralt, the better.

It’s not long before his mother stumbles downstairs, wrapped in her fluffy robe and with an overabundance of mint-patterned curlers in her hair. Jaskier’s just finishing up a bowl of cereal, which works excellently timing-wise.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi, baby.” His mother wraps him in a tight hug and presses too many kisses to the top of his head. “I’m so glad you’re home with us.”

“I am too,” he says. “I’m sure that Priscilla and Valdo are losing their minds, so I was thinking I’d go and see them today.”

“Of course,” his mother says. “You don’t even have to ask, dear.”

“I just wanted you guys to know where I was,” he says with a smile. “And I was wondering if I could borrow dad’s old recorderphone, too.”

“I’ll go get it for you,” his mother promises, and promptly vanishes upstairs.

Jaskier, meanwhile, finishes his cereal and puts the dishes in the dishwasher. His father’s recorderphone is a bulky thing with an entire leather strap for carrying, but it’s not particularly heavy and thank goodness for it. Once he’s dashed upstairs and changed into simple but warm clothing, it’s not hard for him to swing the recorderphone over his shoulder and get going.

“Bye, mom,” he calls. “I’ll be back by dinner at the latest.”

“Stay safe, dear!”

The streets are packed again, like they always are this time of year, but heads keep turning towards him despite all the other bodies out and about. He flushes and stares down at his feet as he walks. Discomfort squirms in his stomach, and he grips the strap of the recorderphone like he can transfer all of his stress to the inanimate hide.

The door to Priscilla’s home is whipped open almost as soon as Jaskier’s knocked. It’s Priscilla, very clearly having hoped for his arrival if her full-body slump of relief is any indication. The limpness is only momentary; in the next moment he’s being grabbed by the arm and yanked inside, where Priscilla wraps him in a hug so tight that he’s temporarily unable to breathe. He hugs her right back without a single wheeze of complaint.

“Christ, Jaskier,” she chokes, sniffling against the side of his face. “I thought you were dead, and it was all my fault we even found the place.”

“It’s all right,” he soothes her. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“How?” she demands, pulling away. She pushes him further into the house with one hand while wiping tears with the other, and he pretends very considerately that he doesn’t see her crying. “I can’t figure it out, even though I’m happy.”

“He’s—” Jaskier sighs and shakes his head. “He’s just a person, Pris. He took me inside so I wouldn’t freeze and then put me in the garbage chute because I wasn’t going to be able to make it home before the storm.”

“He didn’t even try to hurt you?” Priscilla’s father asks, and belatedly offers a mildly sheepish, “Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear.”

“Well, after he told me to leave and I walked further into his cave, he did draw a sword,” Jaskier admits. “But it was just a scare tactic; he didn’t so much as nick me. He even told me to curl up into a ball before he shut the garbage chute so that I wouldn’t rough myself up too badly on the way back home.”

Priscilla and her father look amazed. Something in their expressions is irritating, but Jaskier shoves it down.

“Do you know anything about the Wolf?” Jaskier asks Priscilla’s father. “Anything beyond the usual rumors, that is. I’m trying to figure out how he came to be there.”

Priscilla’s father shakes his head. “Can’t say I do, no. All I know is that he’s been there my whole life, and for all of my father’s.”

“Could it be successive generations?” Jaskier asks. “Or do you think it’s the same person?”

“Dunno. Could be generations, but you’d think we’d hear of a wife if there was breeding going on.”

“There might not be wives,” Priscilla suggests quietly. “It could be the temporary duty of women who have gone missing.”

“He wouldn’t,” Jaskier snaps, a little too quickly. He can’t even be bothered to be embarrassed by the strange way that Priscilla and her father are looking at him; his chest is burning with the need to defend the man who had scarfed down his mother’s casserole like he’d never eat a warm meal again.

“Sorry,” Priscilla says, clearly bewildered.

“I think he’s been...mutated, somehow. It could slow his aging.”

Priscilla and her father exchange looks that they don’t think he can see. “Right,” she says. “Can I ask why you’re suddenly so interested in him? I mean, you survived. It’s over.”

“But he was  _ kind,” _ Jaskier insists, thinking of how clumsily Geralt had offered comfort while he was barely conscious. His chest is throbbing. “He—”

There’s something in their eyes, sticky and sharp like pity.

“Nevermind,” he huffs, turning away. “Anyways, I’m alive. I’ve got to go see Valdo and let him know the same.”

He can’t help but think, as he trudges down the stairs from Priscilla’s second-floor apartment to the street below, that Valdo is some kind of last hope. On an instinctual level he had known that Essi wouldn’t help him help Geralt, too wounded by the thought of almost losing her brother. So too had he suspected that Priscilla, always a stubborn one, wouldn’t be much help either. But he has hope for Valdo. His oldest friend, Valdo has always been the most sensitive of them all, and Jaskier has a better chance of winning him over than he did with Essi or Priscilla.

Valdo is waiting. Jaskier can’t even lift his hand to knock before the door is being yanked open and Valdo is all but leaping into his arms, his entire body trembling.

“He- _ ey,” _ Jaskier grunts beneath the full-body assault. “Glad to see I was missed.”

“Shut up,” Valdo sobs, sniffing loudly against his neck. Jaskier wrinkles his nose but doesn’t protest. “I can’t even describe how—Jesus, Jask, the trip back to Lettenhove…”

“I’m alright,” he says. The stares of passerby are searing, and he loosens his grip on Valdo. “Can we…?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Valdo, sniffling, leads him inside. “It’s so good to see you. What’s up with the recorderphone, though?”

Jaskier kicks off his shoes and follows Valdo to his room, although he keeps his jacket on. “Promise you won’t make fun of me?”

“After you pulled that returning-to-life stunt?” Valdo scoffs wetly. “Not for a month, at least. I promise.”

They end up sitting on Valdo’s bed, facing each other like they used to do during sleepovers so many years ago. Valdo’s not crying anymore, but his face is flushed and his nose is running. He’s one of the best things Jaskier’s ever seen.

“I think the Wolf used to be human, once,” Jaskier says after a long pause. “I’m trying to figure out who he was, and—and maybe get Lettenhove to welcome him back.”

Valdo’s face is entirely indecipherable, and Jaskier waits with a churning stomach for any kind of response. He needs Valdo on his side more than he’d previously realized. How could just one person possibly change the minds of an entire town?

“Alright,” Valdo says at last. “I’d like to hear how you came to that conclusion, though.”

“When I fell,” Jaskier explains. “I was perfect prey, if he’d wanted any, and if he didn’t then all he had to do was leave me there for the elements to finish off. But I lived. I woke up that night, barely, and it took me a long time to even remember what had happened but—” He sighs and rubs his hands over his face, groaning. “This is going to sound stupid.”

“Maybe. I’ll listen.”

“There was a fire nearby, and warm hands under my neck so I could drink. He told me that I was safe. And the way he spoke, it… His words were so clumsy, but so genuine. He covered my eyes so I couldn’t see him and panic, but he—” Warmth rushes through him at the memory of Geralt’s hand running through his hair, trembling slightly. Although he can feel his face heating, he presses onwards. “He ran his hands through my hair as an effort to comfort me. A reassurance.”

“Jaskier,” Valdo says carefully. “I say this as non-judgmentally as possible.”

He winces. “Yes?”

“Do you have a crush on the Wolf?”

He...might, yes. Rather than admit that, he grumbles incoherently and stares down at his lap to try and hide his burning face.

“Okay,” Valdo sighs. “Only you, Jask.”

“No, listen!” Jaskier pleads. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that. He’s not a monster, and he doesn’t deserve to live up there like one.”

Valdo reaches out and takes his hand before he can rile himself up too badly, eyes as dark and serious and steady as ever. Jaskier can feel himself calming. His tension melts like snow under Valdo’s gaze, which holds no hint of mockery.

“I’m listening,” he promises. “Keep talking.”

“He—” Jaskier breathes out, shaky with the anticipation of Valdo’s allyship. “I woke up in a pile of blankets. I think it’s the closest thing the Wolf has to a real bed. The fire was out, and my clothes were laid out around the pit. I think he’d dressed me in his clothes to help fight off the chill. It wasn’t long before he came into the part of the cave I was in and told me to get dressed and get out. I, uh, did not. I  _ did  _ get dressed, but then I wandered deeper into the cave.”

Valdo groans in disappointment.  _ “Jaskier.” _

“I’m alive, aren’t I? Anyways, I found him in this room with all these weapons and what looked like a butcher’s table, and I was sure I was going to die. He even pulled a sword on me, but he was just posturing. He told me to take a good look, and—and I did, Valdo, and it was awful. His clothing was so worn and patched, and there was no way it was any kind of protection against the cold. And his feet! He didn’t even have socks. He looked half-starved, too. It was hard to look at him and see the monster that everyone says he is.”

“He had a sword pointed at you.”

“It didn’t leave so much as a scratch, although it did get me to leave. But when I made it to the door, I realized that there was a storm on the horizon and I wasn’t going to make it home alive if I tried to make it down the mountain now. He knew it too, and although he didn’t talk he led me to the garbage dump. The chutes go two ways, apparently. And when I asked him what I should tell everyone, he said  _ Whatever. _ Like nothing I could say would do anything.”

“Okay,” Valdo says. “I don’t see—”

“And then last night I brought him hot cocoa and some of mom’s lasagna casserole.”

Valdo chokes on his own breath and goes silent for a long time, staring at Jaskier with too-wide eyes. “You what?”

“I brought him something warm to eat and drink,” Jaskier challenges, heart tripping in his chest. “And socks.”

“You got down off of the mountain,” Valdo says, strangled, “and then decided to go back up not a full day later? I’m assuming your parents didn’t know about this.”

“Yes and yes. He pulled a sword on me when he opened the door, of course, before he knew who I was, but once he recognized me he put the sword down and let me in. He’s lonely. And the way he ate, like he’d never get a warm meal again?” Jaskier bites his lip and looks down at his hands, which he’s twisting together above Valdo’s navy comforter. “It’s so terribly sad, Valdo, and that’s not even the saddest part.”

“What is?” Valdo asks warily.

“He didn’t even remember his name.  _ His own name. _ He remembered what sound it started with, and I threw out names until he recognized one.”

“And what is the Wolf’s name?”

“Geralt.” Jaskier looks out Valdo’s window at the street beyond. “When I told him I’d be back, he got upset. Told me to stay in Lettenhove and not bother keeping him like a secret. But I—I can’t just leave him up there, cold and alone, knowing what I know.”

“So you’re going to dig through Lettenhove’s history, reading up on everything about every Geralt who’s ever lived here?” Valdo asks.

“Nobody who was around when the Wolf first appeared is still alive, but I have my dad’s recorderphone just in case.” Jaskier pats it affectionately. “You can—I guess I don’t expect you to help, me but—”

“And why not?” Valdo says with a frown. “Of course I will.”

“Really?” Jaskier breathes. His throat is tightening and he blinks rapidly to fight against unwanted tears. “You’re serious?”

“Completely.” Valdo’s lips twitch into a smile so sweet that Jaskier almost wishes he loved him. “I know just where to start, too.”

Joy of joys, Valdo’s great-grandfather is a huge local history buff, and they only have to go down the hallway to find him. He’s not even napping. At the sound of the door opening he redirects his attention from the television, and then flashes a bright smile. Through the liver-spots and near-baldness, it’s not actually too hard to see how he was once handsome.

“Hello, there!”

“Hey, pawpaw.” There’s a couple comfortable chairs near pawpaw’s bed just waiting to be occupied, and Valdo and Jaskier sink gladly into them. “Jaskier’s got some questions about the town history, and I figured it anyone might know the answers it would be you.”

“Oh, ask away!” pawpaw croaks, visibly perking up as he raises a shaking hand to pause the television.

“It’s about the Wolf,” Jaskier prefaces hesitantly.

Something curious washes over pawpaw’s face. “Oh? You just escaped from him, didn’t you? Valdo was very upset when we all thought you were dead.”

“I’m glad to be alive,” he defers, and switches the recorderphone on. “Tell me, do you know when exactly the Wolf became a known figure?”

“Oh, it was Christmas Day, many years ago. My own father was just a boy at the time. There were two children who the town realized had gone missing the night before, and everyone was out looking for them. One was Renfri, a fiery but well-liked girl who was the stepdaughter of Mayor Stregobor. The other took a little longer for people to realize that he was missing—Geralt, his name was. He was a good friend of both my father and uncle, a quiet boy.”

Jaskier’s breath catches. He and Valdo exchange glances out of the corner of their eyes, but say nothing.

“They looked all over Lettenhove all morning, and at last they found Renfri. Or, her body, that is. Crouched over her was the Wolf, dressed in rags like a spectre and with hair as white as the snow around him. Witnesses say his eyes glowed pure gold. He ran off, and that was that. By the end of the day, the story of the Wolf and poor Renfri had made its way around town and the rest is history. It’s the most joyless Christmas Lettenhove’s ever had.” Pawpaw shakes his head, lost in thought.

“What about Geralt?” Jaskier prompts.

“They never did find his body. What they  _ did  _ find was a scientific workshop in Geralt’s mother’s basement, and traces of vomit and other such things. All sorts of sigils lined the walls. The working story is that Visenna—Geralt’s mother—performed some kind of arcane sacrificial ritual, bolstered by Christmas and the life of her own son, and that the beast she summoned broke loose to terrorize the town. It lives on through that same unnatural magic. Of course, there’s no telling what really happened; Visenna never told, Geralt’s dead by now if he wasn’t dead before Renfri, and the Wolf will hardly speak on the matter.”

“If he did, though,” Jaskier says slowly, cogs turning in his head, “do you think his testimony would carry any weight?”

Pawpaw turns shrewd eyes upon the two of them. “What are you planning?”

Jaskier turns off the recorderphone. “The Wolf isn’t a monster. He’s a person, albeit a mutated one. He didn’t kill Geralt or rise from any sacrifice; he  _ is  _ Geralt.”

Pawpaw leans forward to speak quietly, his aged face looking decades younger. “If you could do what my father failed to do…”

“What?” Valdo asks.

“My father was Geralt’s closest friend. He knew that the Wolf was a boy and not a monster, but who would listen to him? All they’d see was a traumatized child grasping at straws.”

Jaskier’s stomach sinks. “That’s all they’ll see me as, too,” he mumbles.

“Maybe,” pawpaw says. “But maybe not.” He nods to a far corner of the room, where a stack of boxes thrusts a table lamp to the height of a standing lamp. “My father’s journals are in there. Bring them to me, and I’ll find you the journal you need.”

So they pull down the boxes one by one, and hand each journal to pawpaw for him to flip through. Jaskier’s heart is pounding in his chest at the prospects of what lays before him, but pawpaw’s steady determination is a kind of balm. It only takes two and a half boxes before pawpaw makes a triumphant sound and thrusts a faded leather journal at them.

“This one,” he says.

Valdo works on re-stacking the boxes while Jaskier sinks back into his chair and flips through the pages until he reaches a Christmas entry. Lip pinched cruelly between his teeth, he starts to read.

_ Dec 25, 1862 _

_ I’m going to remember today for as long as I live. _

_ The news that Renfri and Geralt were missing went around town quickly this morning, so instead of playing with presents we all bundled up and went looking for them. Of all nights to run away, no kid would run away on Christmas. And before we left school for Christmas vacation, Geralt seemed more anxious than usual. He’d said his mother was acting oddly. _

_ It didn’t take long for us to find Renfri’s body. Stregobor seemed to know exactly where it would be, and although he shouted a lot I didn’t see a single tear. It’s like he knew already that she was dead. _

_ I was a part of that group. From a distance we could see that there were two figures by the woods, one on the ground and one hunched over her. I thought I could hear Geralt crying on the breeze. The second figure noticed us almost as soon as we saw it, and although it looked up at us it was too far away for us to see much. Its hair blended into the snow, and looking into the sun its eyes glowed like pure gold, but it seemed afraid of us. Long before we reached Renfri’s body, it had fled up the mountain. We didn’t go after it, because we didn’t know what it was or what it could do. _

_ Stregobor carried her back to town and didn’t even look sad. Her mother cried, at least. Visenna didn’t seem very upset either, even though Geralt was still missing and the other child had turned up dead. Although I wasn’t in the house, dad tells me that they discovered a secret lab under Visenna’s house full of all kinds of equipment and with weird signs on the walls. They think she was practicing magic on Geralt to try to summon a monster, but it had broken loose. Murder, they said. Geralt’s dead. Visenna didn’t deny the charges before they burned her. They’re calling the creature the Wolf, even though no one knows what it looks like, because all day long we’ve been hearing howls like a wolf’s coming from the mountain. _

_ Mom and dad keep asking me if I’m sure I’m alright. I don’t know. Lambert is upset, but I feel mostly numb. How can I accept that he’s dead without a body? He could still be alive. He has to still be alive. _

“Oh, God,” Valdo rasps from over Jaskier’s shoulder.

“This—” Jaskier scrunches up his face and tries not to let tears fall. “Oh, this is terrible.”

“Keep reading,” papaw says.

_ Dec 26 (?), 1862 _

_ I don’t know what time it is or whether it’s still Christmas. _

_ Geralt’s alive. _

_ He knocked on my window, and I almost screamed for help before I recognized his face. His red hair has gone all white, and his eyes look like a cat’s. His voice is raspy from screaming and vomiting. _

_ He says that his mother conspired with Stregobor to change him into something not human. He says the cold doesn’t hurt, and that he can see and hear and smell sharper than he could before. He says that he escaped after his transformation, and when Renfri stumbled across him she panicked, and that he was trying to calm her down when she tripped and hit her head on a sharp rock. Neither of us know why she was wandering outside before dawn. That secret will die with her, because Stregobor will never tell. (I know he had something to do with it—he’s always been weird.) _

_ I begged Geralt to stay and explain himself to the town. His mother couldn’t hurt him anymore, and if he announced himself then he could the rumors of the Wolf before they grew to be too powerful. But he told me that he couldn’t return with Stregobor still in charge of the town, and that they’d only burn him too. I didn’t want to believe him. _

_ He said goodbye, and told me that Lambert and I had been great friends, and climbed the mountain again. Unless I can convince the town of what happened, I know I’ll never set eyes on him again for as long as I live. _

“Jaskier,” Valdo breathes. “We have to help him.”

“It’s been over a hundred years,” Jaskier says. He tries to stay strong, but his voice cracks and breaks terribly beneath the sorrow of the journal entries. “He’s been alone on that mountain for more than a  _ hundred years _ because of what his mother did to him.”

Pawpaw smiles sadly at them. “Fix it, then.”

Essi doesn’t speak to him at dinner, which somehow makes the decision to sneak out again that night easier. He puts his father’s recorderphone in a secure case so that it doesn’t break on the way up, and sneaks to the garbage chute when the rest of the town is well and truly asleep. After their last parting, Jaskier is a little nervous to see Geralt again, but he knows that he’ll need Geralt’s story for anything to happen.

The mountain is cold, as always, and he stumbles but doesn’t fall on his way to Geralt’s door. The trail is almost familiar now, as odd a thought as that is. For so long he couldn’t even imagine what the Wolf’s lair might look like, and now here he is hiking there for the third time.

When Geralt swings the door open, there’s no sword. He seems to have been expecting Jaskier, if the unimpressed glower and barked, “Go away,” is anything to judge by.

“Hello!” Jaskier says breathlessly. “I have an idea.”

Geralt looks like he wants to snarl, but bites it back. “What,” he says through gritted teeth.

“I’ve got a diary and a verbal recounting of your history,” he says breathlessly, shifting back and forth on quickly-numbing feet. “I need a statement from you, now.”

Geralt stares at him flat-faced and doesn’t budge from the center of the doorframe.

“The townspeople think you— _ Geralt _ you, not Wolf you—are dead. If I can convince them that you’re Geralt and not some kind of demon spawned with his blood, you can come down the mountain.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“What?” Jaskier pants. He shifts again. “Look, can you just let me in? It’s cold out here.”

“If I don’t want to come down the mountain,” Geralt says. The words drip from his tongue as slow as molasses. “What then?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jaskier sputters. “You’re going to tell me that you’d rather keep eating whatever you’re eating now than a warm casserole? Drink melted snow instead of hot cocoa? Sleep on a pile of blankets instead of in a heated house?” He shakes his head. “Are you punishing yourself for something?”

Geralt growls low in his chest. “Just go,” he spits, shoving Jaskier backward. Even now, his hands are gentle and the pressure he exerts carefully measured.

“I absolutely will  _ not,” _ Jaskier spits right back, leaning into the door Geralt tries to shut so that he tumbles inside. All of his fear of Geralt is gone. Even as he stumbles to his feet beneath a full-throated snarl, he can’t bring himself to be afraid of Geralt’s bared fangs or flame-flashing eyes. He just feels angry on Geralt’s behalf. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be.” Geralt presses him against the wall of the cave with one gorgeously muscled forearm, both of their chests heaving. “I’m a monster.”

“I believe that you believe that,” Jaskier murmurs.

The quietness works to deescalate the situation. Geralt goes silent, staring at him with an expression that Jaskier can’t quite decipher. It looks a little like fear and confusion, but a little like adoration as well. After a period of time that could be anywhere from two seconds to two minutes, Geralt drops his arm and steps away.

“Can I pull out my recorderphone?” Jaskier asks.

Geralt nods as he turns away and settles himself in the pile of blankets. Jaskier sits on the stone-and-dirt floor, hiding a grimace; he’ll be home soon enough, where he can warm up his butt and legs in a real bed. The recorderphone all but winks where it’s set between them, brimming with undecided potential.

“Okay,” Jaskier says, and leans forward to turn it on. “What do you remember about your childhood?”

“I… My name is Geralt. Was Geralt. I lived in Lettenhove with my mother. She had...red hair. I did too. Her name was Visenna, and I—” He clears his throat. “I thought she loved me.”

“Thought?” Jaskier prompts gently.

Geralt readjusts his position, sitting crisscrossed like a kid and not a man more than a hundred years old. He’s wearing the socks Jaskier had brought the night before. It’s a little thing, but it makes Jaskier’s entire chest warm.

“I wasn’t a bad kid,” he rumbles. Jaskier can only pray that the old recorderphone can even pick up Geralt’s voice. “She didn’t beat me or yell at me, that I remember. But… It was Christmas Eve. I was sleeping, and she pulled me out of bed. The mayor was there. And she brought me somewhere, I don’t remember where.” Slowly, Geralt’s words start to come back to him. “I just know that I was cold, and scared. There were all these beakers and instruments, and sigils on the walls, and there—” His complexion goes a little green. “There was a chair. It had straps to keep me in place. But she was my mother and I trusted her, and it was me against two adults, so I sat down and let them strap me in.”

He goes silent for a long, long time, and Jaskier watches with a little horror as his eyes go vacant. His throat works in little motions like he’s biting back a scream. In his lap, his hands twist and stretch and curl back into fists.

“Geralt?” Jaskier asks at last. “Geralt, are you with me?”

“Hmm?” Geralt snaps abruptly back to the real world, and although he’s shaking when he casts a mistrustful glance at the recorderphone he utters a gruff, “Fine. I’m fine.”

“What happened after they strapped you into the chair?”

“They gave me a drink. I thought I was going to die,” Geralt says, his voice so rough that the words come out garbled. “I cried and screamed and threw up and they just watched. If I had been able to, I would’ve killed myself just to make the pain stop.”

Jaskier’s stomach churns with such strength that his dinner threatens to make a reappearance. “And when it was done?” he prompts gently, just to draw Geralt from that vacant-eyed place.

“I fell unconscious at some point, but when I woke up, they had just taken the bindings off. I ran.” He shakes his head. “I don’t remember much beyond that. I...was desperate. I know that much. And there was a girl who I wanted to help me, but I looked terrible. She was scared of me, and then—” He cuts himself off, scowling at the recorderphone. “Blood. There was blood, and I was frightened and overwhelmed. And then there were people. I ran again, and…” He shrugs. “The rest isn’t noteworthy. Just survival.”

“Why did you run?” Jaskier asks. “Do you remember?”

“There was a body,” Geralt says softly. “If I had scared her so badly—I didn’t know what I looked like. If I was even human anymore.”

“You thought they’d hurt you?”

“I  _ knew  _ they’d hurt me,” Geralt says, a little aggressively. “I could smell the bloodlust.”

“And all the people who have disappeared over the years,” Jaskier asks, hesitant but knowing that he needs to ask this question for his future efforts to mean anything, “what happened to them? Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“Sometimes I find bodies. Idiots who were trying to find me, probably. I bury them.” He goes quiet for a beat and then speaks in a hushed tone, his sentences emerging in halted bursts. “Sometimes people do find me. People who aren’t a few curious kids. People with weapons. I always try to talk them out of it. It never works. So they die at my hands. But no others, and I don’t eat them. Everyone gets buried.”

“So you’d never had a situation like mine, with a group of four where they managed to find you with no weapons?”

“No.”

“Why did you do what you did? Why not pursue the three of them? Pris could’ve led a mob back here. And why save me?”

“Never wanted to hurt anyone.” Geralt has yet to look at Jaskier, instead focusing on his toes or hands or anything else. “Wouldn’t be able to catch them all effectively anyway, and what would I do once I had them? Besides, I’m tired. So what if one of your friends brought a mob? And for you, I do try to save people, but they’re always dead by the time I find them.”

“You…?” Something cold settles like a stone in Jaskier’s stomach. “You’d just lie down for a mob?”

“What’s here for me?” Geralt gestures vaguely at his surroundings. “Nothing. I’m just too much of a coward to do it myself.”

Jaskier knows he doesn’t do a good job at hiding the horror that leeches the heat from his bones better than any frigid stone. Geralt raises an eyebrow.

“You asked,” he says.

“So I did,” Jaskier mutters. “If you… Why would you let me do this?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Geralt says. “Best case, I get to be a person again.”

Jaskier shuts off the recorderphone, determination burning inside his chest. “I’ll make it the best case, Geralt.”

Cast in orange by the oil lamp, his eyes turned molten, Geralt says quietly, “I believe that you believe that.”

There’s nothing to do but leave. Jaskier’s business here is complete, but before he goes he takes the chance and reaches out to take one of Geralt’s hands in his. Although Geralt flinches bodily, he tightens his grip when Jaskier silently curses and goes to pull his hand away. For an electric minute they sit in peaceful silence, hand in hand, and Jaskier watches the effects of his touch with slack lips. Geralt looks more human than ever.

“I’ll be back,” Jaskier promises in a whisper. He squeezes once before loosening his grip and drawing his hand gently from Geralt’s, careful all the while. “I’m going to get you off of this mountain, Geralt.”

Jaskier makes it all the way outside before Geralt speaks, his voice barely carrying. “I never thanked you for the socks.”

“You don’t have to,” Jaskier says.

“No, I do.” He’s still sitting on the floor, and when he looks up at Jaskier his eyes are so sweet and sorrowful that it hurts. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

The air is still tonight. While the snow isn’t new, it’s relatively undisturbed this far up the mountain, and it glows beneath the sliver of pale moon. The atmosphere is overwhelmingly peaceful. A patch of light cast by the oil lamp spills out the front door, pooling around Jaskier. He wants to lay down despite the temperature. Wouldn’t it be peaceful, staring up at the abundant stars? It’s harder to see stars in Lettenhove, where there’s almost always some kind of light. The mountain is almost far enough to get away.

But he can’t stay away, so he pushes the door gently shut and makes the trek back to the dumpyard. The recorderphone is tucked safely against his chest, in its case. Tomorrow he’ll condense the two interviews for easier playing and give them to Valdo. To give their case more credibility, it’ll be Valdo presenting their nomination of Geralt as the Holiday Cheermeister to Mayor du Vengerburg and not Jaskier. Christmas is a sacred time in Lettenhove, meaning no one will attack him, and the role of Holiday Cheermeister will allow the town to see Geralt as the human he is—especially if his real identity is revealed beforehand.

Essi is sitting at the kitchen table when he gets back. He sighs as he toes off his shoes and takes off his jacket, keeping the recorderphone cradled close. He doesn’t think she’d do anything to it, but he can’t be too cautious.

“What are you doing waiting up?” he whispers.

She rolls her eyes. “Waiting for you.”

“Why?”

“I want to know exactly what it is you’re doing.” She crosses her arms and scowls. “You’re planning something, Jas.”

“I am,” he agrees. “Geralt was  _ made  _ to be whatever human-adjacent he is now, and by his own mother no less. He deserves to be brought back into society, or the only monsters in this town will be us.”

Essi sighs heavily, her eyes fluttering shut. She looks more tired than angry. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Jas,” she whispers after a long silence. “That’s all.”

“And I appreciate your concern,” he says. “But I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t do everything in my power to help him.”

Essi’s lower lip wobbles. Jaskier feels his heart crack as her arms raise, and he’s helpless to do anything other than pull her into a strong hug. She melts into his front with a sigh and clutches tightly at his sweater.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I guess I just—I was so scared, Jas. I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m right here.” He pulls her closer, sticking his nose into her hair. She smells like the holly-scented shampoo she loves to use in the winter, and he drinks in the familiar scent. “It’s alright, Essi. I promise.”

“I’m sorry for being so mean.”

“You were scared.” He rubs a hand up and down her back. “If our positions had been switched, I’d probably be acting the same way.”

They wander back upstairs, arm in arm, and when Jaskier sinks into bed it’s with a contented warmth in his chest. He doesn’t dare to hope, but he’s cautiously optimistic about the future. Geralt’s golden eyes follow him into his dreams.

Whatever optimism is drained in the face of Mayor du Vengerburg. It’s just Valdo presenting their case, and his presence wouldn’t help, so he’s sitting outside the town hall with a steaming cup of hot chocolate and focusing on the bite of cold stone through the fabric of his jeans. If he focuses on that, maybe he can ignore the way that his stomach is swirling like a tempest. Everything hinges on this meeting.

“Hey.”

He looks up right into Priscilla’s pinched, hesitant face.

“Hey,” he says quietly.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” she says, shifting back and forth on her feet. She’s weighed down by far too many shopping bags; it looks like her family has finally gotten around to their last-minute shopping. “We haven’t spoken since you let me know that you were alive.”

“Fine,” he says. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just figured—You know, your family’s probably been busy, and—” He gestures at all the bags. “—I wasn’t wrong.”

He feels a little sick, dancing around like this, but the way that she’d spoken of Geralt and how her and her father had looked at him still sits wrong. He’ll fix it later. For now, he’s preoccupied with helping Geralt.

She laughs. It’s fake. “Yeah, yeah. Listen, I—” Her eyes drift to the engraved doors of the town hall. “You were upset when you left. I’m sorry for that.”

“The insinuation that Geralt would ever… It definitely wasn’t appreciated.”

“Geralt?”

“That’s his real name.”

Priscilla’s eyebrows meet her hairline. “How’d you learn that?”

“I asked him.” Jaskier shrugs and takes a sip of his hot chocolate.

She narrows her eyes. “When did you ask him?”

“Don’t ask questions if you know you won’t like the answer,” he mutters, bringing the cup back to his mouth so he’ll have a brief moment bereft of the expectation to speak.

“Jaskier, what are you planning?” Priscilla asks.

“Nothing illegal,” he says.

“Or ill-advised?”

“I don’t think our definitions match,” he muses, “so yes and no.”

“Pris!” her father shouts from the other side of the street, waving an arm to catch her attention. The other arm is stacked to the shoulder with bags. “Pris, come on, we have more shopping to do!”

“I won’t keep you,” Jaskier says, offering a smile that he knows is strained. “I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

“Yeah,” Priscilla sighs, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t know why we put this off until so late every year; we always regret it and promise not to do it next time.”

She vanishes into the crowded street, and Jaskier feels like he can breathe again. He doesn’t have the energy to persuade her that his idea isn't terrible, not after convincing both Valdo and Essi. Especially not today; he’s stretched too thin by his stress, glancing at the doors every couple of seconds. How long could Valdo’s meeting possibly take?

He does manage to drink most of his hot chocolate before the doors to the town hall actually swing open. Valdo walks stone-faced down the stairs, nothing on his face giving away any kind of sentiment. The hot chocolate in Jaskier’s stomach solidifies, and he swallows around the now-bitter taste in his mouth. His mouthful goes down like ash.

“Well?” Jaskier demands, having to put effort into not crushing his hot chocolate cup.

Valdo winks. His face cracks to reveal the mirth beneath, the joy and the pride.

“Did—?”

“Geralt Rivia is this year’s Holiday Cheermeister,” Valdo confirms, teeth glinting whiter than snow. “Mayor du Vengerburg will host him in her home. You just need him to come down; she’ll be waiting all night tonight.”

“I can do that,” Jaskier says breathlessly. Something bubbles up past his throat, spilling into the air around them in a hysterical giggle. “I can—Yeah, I can do that.”

Valdo grips his arms and pulls him into a hug, laughing too. Jaskier can’t do anything other than sway into Valdo’s embrace, relief weakening his knees. Is that really all he has left to do is actually get Geralt down the mountain, which shouldn’t be a problem if they move by night. His heart is tripping in his chest, so much elation filling him that it has nowhere to go.

Before they leave, Jaskier turns and casts a glance upwards at Mayor du Vengerburg’s office. Her frame hovers in the window, long black waves and a gently upturned mouth. He can’t help but mouth a great  _ Thank you, _ needing her to know how big her small concession really is. Her response is a mere nod, but he can feel her smiling even after she’s turned away from the window. Or maybe that’s just him.

News travels fast in Lettenhove, especially when it has something to do with Christmas, so it’s not even dinnertime before Priscilla’s knocking on his door. He pulls it open with a sinking stomach. She doesn’t seem angry, at least, just stunned.

“You talked to the mayor,” she says. Her tone verges on accusatory.

“Technically it was Valdo who spoke with her?” he tries.

“You—” She pokes him aggressively in the center of the chest. “—are a silver-tongued menace. How did you manage to do this?”

“I just put together a cohesive case,” Jaskier says stiffly. “It just so happened to be good enough for Mayor du Vengerburg to agree to name Geralt the Holiday Cheermeister.”

“It’s already going around,” she says. “Your sob story is softening people’s hearts so they’ll accept him: how poor Geralt Rivia was magically transformed by his own mother, only to be driven up the mountain by the people of Lettenhove when they didn’t understand what had happened.” She narrows her eyes. “How much of that was a lie?”

He rears back as if struck. “None of it,” he snaps. “Everything I said was the truth. Valdo’s great-great-grandfather was friends with Geralt, and his diary records the day it all happened, but no one believed him because he was just a kid.  _ Geralt  _ was just a kid, and it’s been  _ more than a century _ since he was abandoned.”

“You mean to tell me that the Wolf has been on that mountain for over a hundred years and is still in his physical prime? I saw those abs before I ran; those weren’t old-man abs.”

“He’s got gold cat’s eyes and white hair, too. Of course he doesn’t age at the same speed as a normal human.” Jaskier scowls. “Pris, what makes it so hard for you to believe me?  _ I’m  _ the one who was actually on the mountain.”

“For one thing, I find it hard to believe that—even if the Wolf really is Geralt of Rivia—he’s still sane! Being alone on a mountain for a hundred years? That’s enough to drive anyone mad.”

“He isn’t mad,” Jaskier insists in little more than a growl. “Of the two of us, which one has had a conversation with him? It’s not you.”

“I’m just telling you—”

“Telling me what?” Jaskier cuts her off hotly, hands tight around the doorhandle and doorframe. “That you think it’s okay for him to sit on that mountain and rot for however long he might live, just because you’re too much of a coward to face the fact that our ancestors screwed over an innocent child?”

It’s her turn to jerk her head back, mouth dropping open in an astonished gape. “That was uncalled for.”

“What’s uncalled for is your treatment of Geralt when you’ve never even met him.” Jaskier grinds his teeth together, trying to keep his temper somewhat in-check. “So you can figure yourself out or you can leave.” He sticks his finger in her face. “But you  _ will  _ respect him come Jubilation, just like the rest of Lettenhove.”

“You’re mad, Jaskier,” she says. And with that, she turns on her tail and stalks stiffly away. Her footsteps are sharp in the thin layer of crisp, new-fallen snow, and he wishes briefly that she’d leave no trace of her visit behind, not even footsteps.

“What was that?” his mother asks when he wanders morosely back to the kitchen. “Was Priscilla here?”

“She was,” he grunts, scuffing a socked foot on the floor.

“What ever were you arguing about?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

For all that his parents are nosy as all hell, it takes Essi telling his parents for them to learn the identity of this year’s Cheermeister. He’s not in the room—he spends the rest of the afternoon hidden away in his own room—but he’s barraged anyways as soon as he comes downstairs for dinner.

“Did you hear who the Holiday Cheermeister will be?” his mother asks as he shovels a bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth, desperate to postpone answering for as long as possible. She doesn’t seem furious, at least, which is what he’d expect if she still viewed the Wolf as a monster. It’s a hopeful start.

“Yeah,” he says when he’s finally swallowed his potatoes.

“How do you feel about that?” his father prompts gently.

“Fine. I’m more worried about you guys.”

“Well, now that we know the story I feel just awful,” his mother says with a sad sigh. “The poor man, isolated for so long. And we spun his legend out of proportion—Oh, it makes me feel so terrible.”

His father makes an agreeing sound. “It’s a shame, but at least we’re fixing it. I don’t know how they got the invitation to him, though; someone would’ve had to have gotten it there.”

“Uh,” Jaskier says. “The invitation hasn’t been sent yet.”

“Oh?” His mother perks up, curious. “How do you know?”

“Because...I’ll be going up tonight to ask him and then bring him down?” Jaskier says. He waits tensely for the ensuing silence to break.

“He’s snuck out to see Geralt both nights since he’s come home.”

_ Goddammit, Essi. _

“You what?” his mother demands, her voice pitched high enough that it hurts his ears.

“What?” he shoots back, defensive. “He didn’t hurt me.”

“You—” His father sputters wordlessly.

“All in the name of Christmas spirit!” Jaskier says. “Bringing home the lost sheep, and all that. What happened to being glad that we’re righting that old wrong?”

“You didn’t know at the time!” his mother protests.

“I knew his character well enough; I wouldn’t have gone back if I thought he would actually hurt me. He—” Jaskier sets down his fork and lips his chapped lips, nervous. “When I first woke up after knocking myself unconscious, I wasn’t exactly lucid. But I remember a fire, and blankets, and a hand on my head, and Geralt’s voice telling me that I was safe. Aside from the fact that he saved me at all, that made me certain that he was good behind all the rumors.”

His parents just stare at him for a long time. His mother’s eyes are a little too wide, her breath coming quick through her nose. His dad appears as nonchalant as ever, although he is gripping his fork a little tight. Essi, the brat, looks bored.

“Well,” his mother says at last, “we always knew you had a big heart. I suppose I can’t be mad at you when you were right about the Wolf.” With that said she settles further into her chair with a delicate shimmy, like a bird trying to reorganize its ruffled feathers.

“Geralt,” he says, still on-edge and primed for a fight. “But...thank you.”

They eat in silence for a while, the tension slowly draining from the room. Essi has no respect for atmosphere and breaks it with a question too soon afterwards.

“Can I go up the mountain with you to get him?”

“No,” he says. “I’m going alone. I don’t want to scare him.”

“Scare him?” Essi’s nose scrunches up in confusion. “He’s a muscled giant.”

Jaskier just sighs and shakes his head. “Not physically scared, but he’s been alone for a long time. He’ll definitely not come down the mountain if I bombard him with too many people while I ask.”

Essi harrumphs but doesn’t protest again.

The rest of the night goes smoothly, except his parents pull him aside before he goes up to bed to ask him when he plans on going to fetch Geralt.

“I’ll have to go late, when the whole town’s asleep; we want as little attention on us as possible.”

“Let me make him some cocoa!” his mother declares. “It must be awfully cold on that mountain.”

“I think he’d appreciate that,” Jaskier says, fighting the fluttering in his chest. It’s fantastic how his parents’ tunes have changed. When he first made it down from the mountain, he never would’ve thought that his parents could view the Wolf as anything other than a monster, but all it took was a little investigation and a passionately argued case to the mayor.

While his mother makes cocoa, Jaskier makes sure he has everything he needs readily available. He won’t be sneaking around his own home tonight.

“Do tell him I’m sorry for all those mean things I’ve said about him,” his mother says as she pours the steaming cocoa into a thermos. “I know he doesn’t know what I’ve said, but I feel bad anyway.”

Jaskier chuckles. “I’ll tell him.”

His mother drops a kiss on the top of his head and wanders up to bed, smelling like candy canes. He watches her go with a smile. This is really the best result he could’ve asked for from his parents, and thank goodness for it. It would’ve been crushing if they’d maintained their hatred. He wonders a tad morosely how many others will refuse to be swayed by the truth of Gearlt’s story, and can only hope that Jubilation will convince them of the truth.

He doesn’t bother with the pretense of going to bed. The television provides ample distraction, and so does his sister when she comes down to keep him company until he has to leave. Even when she yawns so widely that her jaw cracks, she refuses to leave.

“Can’t I want to watch some TV with my brother?” she asks.

“You can, but you’re clearly exhausted.”

Her head bobs even as she says, “I am not.”

He snorts. “Go to bed. It’s late enough that I should be heading out, anyway.”

“Well, if you insist.” She pushes herself to her feet with what looks like great effort. “I expect to hear all about it at breakfast.”

“I don’t think there’ll be much to say. Now shoo.”

Essi offers a very un-Christmas-like gesture as she leaves the room. He has to hold back a laugh.

It doesn’t take long for him to slide into his coat and boots, then grab the flashlight and thermos of cocoa. The night is cloudy and dark, but he doesn’t dare use his flashlight within the town. So once again he sticks to the side of buildings as he slides across slippery cobblestone, his heart in his throat. This whole secrecy thing is exhausting.

He rolls and tumbles through the garbage chute and lands back in the dumpyard with a muffled grunt. The air before him turns white with steamed breath, the temperature far colder on the mountaintop than down in Lettenhove. He grimaces as he pushes himself to his feet. The garbage bags beneath his feet aren’t steady, and he almost falls over when his foot sinks between two bags and gets stuck.

It takes him too long to pull himself from the mountain of garbage bags, but it’s not a long journey from the dumpyard to Geralt’s home. Only a little breathless and with stinging cheeks, he knocks on the door.

Geralt’s hair is a mess when he pulls the door open, and the way he’s blinking makes Jaskier think that he’d been asleep. Oh well. He can’t un-disturb him at this point, and what he’s here for is important.

“I come bearing more hot cocoa, made by my mom this time,” he says as he steps inside. Geralt shuts the door and takes the thermos, blinking curiously at Jaskier. “She says she’s sorry for the mean things she’s said about you, even though you had no clue that she was even saying mean things.”

“Hmm,” Geralt says, blowing softly on the cocoa to cool it some more. He takes a long sip and licks his lips before speaking again. “She knows you’re here?”

“She does.”

“How?”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, “well, that would be because my sister told her. But Essi only told her because it’s gone around town that this year’s Holiday Cheermeister will be—should he accept—none other than one Geralt Rivia.”

Geralt doesn’t choke on his cocoa, but it’s obviously a close thing. He cradles the thermos between two large hands and stares at Jaskier over the top of it, his golden eyes swimming with confusion.

“What?”

“I told you I’d get you down from the mountain,” Jaskier boasts, although his heart is pounding. “My friend Valdo and I—he’s the other guy who came up the mountain with me—put together a case to name you the Holiday Cheermeister and bring you down. He presented it to Mayor du Vengergburg this morning, and she said yes.”

“The Cheermeister?” Geralt says, strangled.

“I know it’ll be a lot of attention on you,” Jaskier says. “But the role of Holiday Cheermeister is revered no matter who inhabits it, and hearts are melting now that the story of what really happened to you is going around.” He offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “All you have to do is accept, and I’ll bring you down the mountain to Mayor du Vengerburg’s house. She’ll be waiting all night, so you don’t have to decide right now.”

Geralt takes a very large drink of the cocoa.

Jaskier thinks and makes what he hopes isn’t a stupid decision. “Eskel wanted so badly for you to be able to come down from the mountain, Geralt.”

Geralt’s blazing gaze snaps to him. “How—?”

“Valdo is Eskel’s great-great-grandson,” Jaskier explains. “His journals were kept in the family, including the one where he details your visit to him that very first night.”

Jaskier watches Geralt’s face carefully, unsure of how the news will be taken. It doesn’t seem to be taken too badly, although there’s an unspeakable emotion engraved in every line of Geralt’s posture.

“Eskel...has a great-great-grandson.”

“Yes.”

“He’s definitely dead, then.”

“Yeah,” Jaskier whispers. “He’s dead.”

“And Lambert too?”

“I think so.”

Geralt stares into the thermos like it might tell him all the secrets of the universe. Predictably, the thermos remains silent.

“I’ve spent more than a century up here,” Geralt says after a long time, voice so low that Jaskier barely catches it.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “You have. And it’s been long enough. Come back to Lettenhove, Geralt.”

“You’re sure this isn’t a trap?” Geralt asks.

“I’m positive.”

Geralt takes a long swig to down the rest of the cocoa and says, “Okay, then.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Jaskier feels his face split as a breathless laugh bursts from him to ring off the cave walls. “Okay. Let’s go. Is there anything from here that you need?”

Geralt looks around the cave, then walks over to the terrible armchair and grabs the familiar pair of socks draped over an exposed spring. Jaskier fights back a stupidly pleased grin, but it’s not too hard with a melancholy tugging on his lungs in counterpoint. Of everything in this cave, that’s all he wants to bring? That’s all that he likes enough to take?

They make their way to the dumpyard in silence, feet crunching in snow and puffed beraths that explode into white fog. It’s peaceful. In the distance, Lettenhove is illuminated only by Christmas lights, glimmering gold and green and red and blue. The sight is stunning.

They tumble through the chute together, but Jaskier had made the unfortunate decision of climbing into the chute first and thus is subjected to Geralt’s ridiculous mass coming down on top of him once they tumble onto the cobblestones.

“Ow,” he wheezes breathlessly, rolling out from under Geralt when the painfully large man props himself up on his arms. “That wasn’t my best decision.”

“I probably should’ve gone first,” Geralt agrees.

They stumble to their feet, sucking in lungfuls of frigid air. Jaskier notices with a pang that Geralt seems to have shrunk in size, curled in on himself and staring at the town around them with heavy trepidation. He looks about ready to turn tail and take the chute back up the mountain.

“Okay,” Jaskier breathes. “Now we just have to get to the mayor’s house. Follow me.”

The windows of Mayor du Vengerburg’s house are dark, but around the back of the house there’s an outdoor light shining yellow across the snow. Jaskier steps fearlessly into the backyard, but Geralt hovers just on the other side of the property line. His grip around the thermos is on the verge of denting it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hate this house,” Geralt mutters unevenly.

“Ah,” Jaskier says. “Yes, Mayor Stregobor would’ve lived here, wouldn’t he?”

Geralt nods.

“He’s dead,” Jaskier says decisively, “and thank God for it. Mayor du Vengerburg is a very frightening woman, but she’s a good person.”

“Hmm,” Geralt grunts, lips flattening. But the words work, and he steps across the property line into the yard.

Jaskier gets the feeling as he knocks on the door that Geralt is trying to hide behind him. He’s not small for his age, but Geralt is big, and it’s definitely not going to work. He wishes that there were more that he could do to make Geralt comfortable, although he knows that the only thing that’ll work is time.

The door swings open to reveal Mayor du Vengerburg herself. She’s smaller than Jaskier would’ve expected, but her presence is frighteningly large even in her pajamas. Her elf slippers have red pom-poms on the tips to match the silky slip that covers all the necessary bits but little else, and the green of the slippers matches the headscarf that keeps her voluminous curls contained. Her violet eyes are undiminished by the night.

“You must be Jaskier,” she says with a courteous smile.

“Yes, ma’am, I am,” he confirms. “And this is my friend, Geralt.”

Her eyes drift over his shoulders to Geralt, and Jaskier has to give her credit for not flinching in the face of him. She doesn’t even look fazed, in fact.

“Please,” she says absently, “call me Yennefer. I’m in my pajamas.”

Geralt speaks over Jaskier’s shoulder, his voice raspy. “Good morning, Yennefer.”

“Good morning, Geralt,” she says, the quirk of her lips betraying her amusement. “Do come in, the both of you; it’s cold outside.”

“Barely,” Geralt murmurs, but they step inside anyway.

“You’ll be staying here, since you have no home of your own in Lettenhove,” Yennefer says as she leads them through the impressively decorated halls of her home. Geralt’s eyes are a little too wide as they scan over every detail of the corridors. “This will be your room.”

It’s a very nice room. There’s a four-poster bed draped in rich burgundy velvet, and a mirrored dresser of the same dark wood as the bed. A beautifully engraved fireplace is already lit, casting the room in brilliant orange and deep black shadows, including the well-stuffed armchair to allow for foot-warming and flame-viewing.

“Thank you,” Geralt says. There’s an odd tone to his voice that has Jaskier glancing over in concern, but Geralt doesn’t look upset. He looks dazed more than anything, absorbing every detail of the room with wide eyes.

“There’s a light switch here,” Yennefer says, rapping her knuckles right below the aforementioned switch, “but I figured that you aren’t used to electricity.”

“No,” Geralt admits awkwardly.

“There’s clothing in the dresser,” Yennefer says, pointing. “I don’t know how well any of it will fit, but it doesn’t need to fit for long; we’ll be fitting you for better clothing tomorrow.”

“We?”

Yennefer waves a hand dismissively. “Just a tailor. Are you hungry? There’s plenty of food in the kitchen.”

“Er...” Geralt looks like he’s about to bolt, but then they lock eyes and Jaskier watches his broad shoulders lower. “I could eat.”

So Yennefer leads them to the kitchen, where she pulls open the fridge and bends down to peer inside. Jaskier averts his eyes as the slip threatens to reveal a little more than he wants to see. Geralt has no such qualms, eyes still glazed with tentative awe, although Jaskier doesn’t think he’s giving Yennefer’s rear end any mind at all.

“What do you want?” she asks.

“I don’t care,” Geralt says.

“I can whip up a charcuterie board,” Yennefer muses.

“Sure.”

Yennefer pulls the meat and cheese from the fridge and burrows through her cabinets in search of crackers. “Will you be staying to eat, Jaskier?”

“I could stay for a couple minutes,” he says.

The kitchen table feels altogether too small with both Yennefer and Geralt around it. Jaskier picks at the board, nibbling on a meat-and-cheese stacked cracker, and absorbs the sticky silence. It doesn’t feel real that Geralt is in Lettenhove.

“There’s a bathroom that I can show you to when we’re done here,” Yennefer says. “I assume that you didn’t have too many hot baths on the mountain, although you don’t smell quite as bad as I’d expected.”

“There were hot springs,” Geralt mumbles. There’s a crumb stuck to his lower lip. “I used them sometimes. Didn’t really have soap, though.”

“Well, we have plenty of soaps here.”

“You said your nose was sensitive, didn’t you?” Jaskier asks.

“Mhmm.”

“So—” He glances at Yennefer and shrugs, feeling suddenly sheepish. He’s not Geralt’s keeper. “—I don’t know, just maybe keep that in mind when offering him soaps.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Yennefer says, staring at him oddly. There’s a delicate curl that’s fallen loose from her headscarf to hang just so along the side of her face, like some kind of testament to her ethereality.

Jaskier no longer has much of a desire to eat, but they sit and eat for a little while longer until Yennefer notices that Geralt’s appetite has waned. She puts the food away while Geralt and Jaskier sit silently at the kitchen table.

“If you’d like to bathe now, you’re welcome to do so,” Yennefer says. “If you’d like to sleep, then that’s alright too.”

Geralt looks down at his nails, kept rather short but terribly dirty. “A bath would be nice.”

“I’ll head out then,” Jaskier says. The chair grates unpleasantly against the floor, and they all wince. “Sorry.” He picks up the chair when he pushes it back in, not letting it touch the floor. “I’ll...be back tomorrow? If you’d like.”

“Yeah,” Geralt says. “If you want.”

“I could bring some people, unless you’re not comfortable with that. Essi wants to meet you, and so does Valdo.”

Geralt frowns down at the table for long enough that Jaskier thinks he’ll say no, but then he nods. “It’s probably a good idea. Get me used to people.”

“You’re going to be just fine,” Jaskier says with all the confidence he can muster. He even tries to smile like he means it.

Geralt, lip twitching, rumbles, “I believe that you believe that.”

The only big downside to consistently riding the chute up the mountain in the middle of the night is that it takes a huge chunk out of the sleep he gets. He’s practically comatose the next morning as he slumps into a kitchen chair, and he doesn’t have to look in a mirror to know that there are bags tugging at the bottom of his eyes.

Essi, sans any sympathy, slams a mug of coffee down before him and demands, “So how did last night go?”

“Fine,” Jaskier grunts, and drains half of the coffee in one scalding, too-big gulp before he speaks again. “It didn’t take all that much convincing. We came down the chute—he landed on top of me, and he’s very heavy, and it hurt—and then headed for the mayor’s house. She opened the door in her pajamas and told us to call her Yennefer, although I’m not sure if she meant for the night or as, like, a general thing. We snacked for a little while after she showed Geralt where he’d be sleeping, and then Geralt decided that he wanted to bathe so I left. You and Valdo have his permission to come and visit with me today, if you’d like.”

“If I’d like?” she squawks with such passion that he winces and worries that she’s woken their parents.  _ “If I’d like? _ Of course I’d like!”

“Alright, geez,” he mutters. “I’ll have to check Valdo’s interest and availability, but I don’t think we’ll have an issue.”

As he and Essi make their way to Valdo’s house, he spares an exhilarated glance at the countdown clock. It’s December 23rd. Tomorrow is the eagerly-anticipated Jubilation, and then Christmas Day will come, and for the first time in over a century Geralt will be back in Lettenhove for it. He’s not foolish enough to think that Geralt will be all smiles; after so long and so many losses, it will be as sore as it is sweet. But it will be a new beginning, too.

“Is he down?” Valdo demands as soon as the door is open. It’s not even noon but he’s already dressed, just for the purpose of walking around his own home. What a heathen.

“I brought him down last night,” Jaskier says happily. “He’s in the mayor’s home. He’s probably still sleeping, honestly, after only having a blanket pile for a mattress for the last hundred years, but he told me last night that I could bring you and Essi by today if I wanted.”

“He—” Valdo’s eyes just about pop out of his head. “He wants to see me?”

“He’s willing to see you and Essi to try and ease himself back into the whole ‘interacting with people’ thing. So yes, but also no.”

“Close enough. Are we heading over now?”

“Whenever you’re free.”

“So now, awesome.” He leaves the door open while he hops inelegantly into boots and that same black jacket. Essi’s in the pink jacket she’d been in before, funny enough. They’re only missing Priscilla. “My God, I can’t believe this. Hey, tell me, was Mayor du Vengerburg in her pajamas when you got there?”

“With a silk hair wrap and everything,” Jaskier confirms. “She had cute elf slippers, and yet she was still scary.”

“I thought I was going to piss myself in the middle of pleading your case,” Valdo says through laughter. He yanks the door shut behind him as they leave. “She’s terrifying!”

“She told me to call her Yennefer,” he says smugly. “I’m not sure if that was just a last-night thing or not, though.”

“Well, you can ask  _ Yennefer  _ when we get there,” Valdo says. “Oh, I’m so excited!”

“He’s not exactly personable,” Jaskier warns. “Don’t get your hopes up, either of you.”

They have to wait a bit after knocking on the door, but with good payoff; it’s none other than Geralt who greets them. Jaskier opens his mouth to say hello and falls terribly silent, his heart fluttering dramatically in his chest. The brief stay at Yennefer’s has already done Geralt a world of good. His hair, washed, is a soft kind of white that floats angelically around his shoulders, although it’s pulled partially back. Real clothing, even if it’s not exactly his, highlights the swell of his biceps and the bulge of his thighs. HIs face is clean, and so are his hands.

Valdo elbows Jaskier.

“Hi!” he says, awfully delayed. His head is still spinning.

“Hi,” Geralt says. His golden gaze drifts between Valdo and Essi. “This is…?”

“Valdo and Essi,” Jaskier says, gesturing appropriately. “They were a part of the initial mountain-climbing group.”

“Yes,” Geralt muses. “I remember their coats. Where’s the other one?”

“She’s...coming around slower to the idea of your presence.”

Something twists in Geralt’s face. “I see.”

Jaskier flattens his lips to try and do something with the discomfort knotting up his stomach. “Uh, can we come in?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Geralt steps aside to let them in, and they tumble in gladly with greedy inhales of room-temperature air.

“Wow,” Essi sighs. “Her house is so nice.”

“Is it?” Geralt looks around the old-wood, delicately detailed home and shrugs. “I wouldn’t know. This is the only house I’ve been inside in...a long time.”

“Ah,” Valdo murmurs awkwardly.

Geralt leads them to the living room, where antique furniture is nestled around a cozy fireplace. He falters and has to step back to hit the light switch, grimacing up at the fixture. Not a huge fan of electricity, then. But once the light is on he doesn’t seem to pay it much mind, and they all eagerly bustle towards the crackling fire.

“We’re having terribly cold weather this year,” Valdo comments mildly. He’s in a chair, Essi in another, and Jaskier—with just a little thrill—has claimed the other seat on the small sofa Geralt had chosen. He can almost feel Geralt’s warmth across the small gap between them.

“Are we?” Geralt says. Jaskier can tell he’s really trying to be social, to push himself from his comfort zone, and it sets off a sweet pang in Jaskier’s heart. “I don’t really notice the cold. Part of the…” He waves his hand gently.

“Well, I suppose it’s useful, at least,” Essi chimes in.

“It is,” he agrees. “I’d be dead if I didn’t have that.”

Jaskier glances down at his feet, always that terrible blue, and feels his heart skip a beat when he realizes that Geralt is still wearing the socks that Jaskier had brought him. Of all the things he could put on his feet…

“It must’ve been lonely,” Valdo ventures.

Geralt turns his eyes on Valdo and Jaskeir watches him try not to quail. “It was.” He’s silent for a long time, during which Valdo sits with a straight spine and eyes that don’t blink as often as they should. “You’re Eskel’s great-great-grandson, Jaskier said?”

“I am,” Valdo confirms a little breathlessly.

“You have his eyes,” Geralt rumbles.

Jaskier watches with a small smile as he watches Valdo melt. All the fear he’d still had melts from him like snow in spring, leaving him looking lighter. One down, a lot to go.

“I do?”

“Hmm. He was a good friend. A good kid.”

“A good dad,” Valdo says. “Pawpaw speaks fondly of him.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Geralt’s lips twitch. “He was always the nicest of us three.”

“But you’re down now,” Essi asserts in that way that she does, “and that’s all that matters.”

“Well,” Geralt says, “it matters if the people of Lettenhove accept me. I’m down now; if they hate me, I get to make my way back up again.”

“You will not,” Jaskier says, appalled. “There are other towns on this planet and I  _ will  _ find you a place in one of them.”

Geralt actually smiles, although it’s still just lips, and Jaskier thinks he swoons a little. “I think I know you just well enough to know that you’ll do it, somehow.”

“Damn right,” Jaskier says through a fluttery throat.

When the three of them leave a good hour and a half later, they’re buoyant. Jaskier’s still riding the high of not only seeing Geralt looking like a person but getting an actual smile from him. Valdo looks dazed. Essi looks ecstatic. The hubbub of bustling pre-Christmas streets can’t reach them, bouncing off of the glaze of their time with Geralt.

Valdo’s still in a daze when they drop him off at his house, and Jaskier can’t help but laugh when he pulls him into a tight hug. “I would love to see Geralt interact with pawpaw.”

“It’d be the death of him and he’d go gladly,” Valdo jokes, squeezing tight before letting Jaskier go. “Now go home before you two freeze.”

“My nose and all of its contents are already frozen solid,” Essi says proudly. “It’s going to hurt when I thaw.”

She maintains a good composure; Jaskier doesn’t even know that she’s upset until she sneaks into his room that night to rouse him from sleep. He’s still sleep-blind, halfway to a seated position before her shushing makes it through his ears and is processed by his brain. He flops back onto his bed and slings an arm over his mouth, licking his lips with a sleep-stale tongue.

“‘Ssi?” he mumbles. “Whad’yawant?” It’s her sniffle that draws him abruptly to the world of the conscious. “Essi?” He tosses the covers aside and sits up.

“I’m sorry,” she says miserably, wringing her hands in the doorway.

“No, no.” He scoots over in bed and pats the spot next to him. “Come on, lay down.” She clambers into bed beside him and, when he lies down, presses herself into his side. Her face is wet against his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s so nice,” she sobs, “and he was living so terribly for so long.”

Ah, so it’s about Geralt. He understands; his thoughts had been much the same.

“I know,” he murmurs, rubbing her back. “I know. But he’s back in Lettenhove now.”

It’s not as great of a comfort as he’d hoped, but her sobs don’t get worse, so that’s...something. She nuzzles closer to him with hitching breaths and he feels his own eyes start to sting as he hums lullabilic melodies. The worst part is the truth of her statement; it’s not fair. None of what’s happened to Geralt is fair except, perhaps, what Jaskier has done for him just by treating him like the real person he is. But Jaskier doesn’t want to shed any more tears over what’s past, so he focuses on how frigid Essi’s feet are even through his pajama pants to try and distract himself from the ache in his chest.

Come morning, Essi’s eyes are a little puffy but she’s otherwise recovered from her bout of melancholy. She’s even got the energy to destroy the kitchen with their mother in an effort to churn out too many gingerbread men for one family to possibly eat. Jaskier stays well out of it. He’s waiting in the wings to give Geralt a pre-Jubilation pep talk, and he can’t do that if he’s drawing Santa sweaters on cookies until the cows come home.

During a brief break when there’s nothing to bake, mix, stir, or frost, Essi finds Jaskier where he’s hiding in his room and collapses onto his bed with a great, heaving sigh.

“You look exhausted,” he comments.

She makes a very rude gesture without removing her face from the bedspread.

“Hostile much?”

“Do you think he’s nervous?” she says.

“Hmm?”

“Geralt.”

Jaskier looks out his window. It’s a calm, clear day, perfect for Jubilation, and the mountain stands regal in the near distance. Snow-capped peaks glisten beneath a proud sun, and although the weather is mellow in Lettenhove today he knows that the mountaintop will still be biting. Surely before the evening is out, Geralt will long for the quiet it provides regardless of how warm and clean he may now be. There are going to be a lot of people at the Jubilation festivities tonight, and Geralt will have the attention of the entire town on him. It won’t be easy.

“Yeah,” Jaskier says. “Yeah, I think he’s nervous. I’ll go see him later, see how he’s doing and if I can help.”

“You should,” Essi pats his leg, still sprawled across the bed. “He likes you. He  _ trusts  _ you; that’s huge.”

“Let’s just hope he trusts me enough to go through with this,” Jaskier mutters, “or I’ll be forced to come through on my other promise to find a town that’ll take him.”

“The town will accept him,” Essi says with more confidence than Jaskier feels, finally picking her head up to look at him. “Or we’ll just have to leave town with him, because I refuse to live in a town so blinded by their own hate that they’ll twice-condemn an innocent man.”

“Essi, dear!” their mother calls.

Essi’s eyes fall shut. “Yes, mom?” she calls back, the goodwill in her voice completely absent in her face.

“We’ve got more work to do! Jaskier can come help, if he’s not doing anything.”

“Oh, would you look at the time,” Jaskier says, leaping from bed. “Time to go see Geralt!”

“Coward,” Essi says flatly. She groans and grunts like a senior citizen as she pushes herself from his bed, and he scoffs at her dramatics.

He really does want to go see Geralt, though, so he shoves his feet into his boots and barely remembers to grab his jacket before he’s out the door. The streets are packed as always, and he can’t help but overhear all sorts of conversations as he dashes through the streets. A surprising number of them are about Geralt, and he feels his spirit lift when they’re all at least neutral. Most people seem to be curious at the least about Geralt, or are expressing a positive kind of sympathy for the poor boy kicked from Lettenhove so long ago.

His breath doesn’t even steam as he waits for the door to Yennefer’s house to be swung open, and he thinks that this is some kind of good omen. Nothing is more mood-killing during Jubilation festivities than bitter, searing wind or temperatures so low that even the thickest long-johns can’t keep the cold out.

Yennefer is in real clothing this time. She’s already dressed for tonight in a rather conservative dress of dark green silk, long-sleeved with a shallow neckline and falling all the way to the floor. The waist is emphasized by a faux belt of embroidered burgundy poinsettias. Nothing much has been done to her hair, and although she might do more with it later, the way it falls now is perfectly stunning. Her makeup is already done, a flattering smokey-eye and lipstick to match the poinsettias, and Jaskier feels horribly small in the face of her.

“Hello, uh...Mayor du—”

She squints at him.

He clears his throat and tries again. “Hello, Yennefer.”

“Better,” she says. “Hello, Jaskier.”

“I just wanted to speak with Geralt, if that’s not too much trouble?” He can feel how young he sounds and tries not to wince in front of her, but shame is already burning him up. What could a conversation with him possibly do when Geralt’s being made up by someone as stunning and confident as Yennefer? But it’s too late to go home and frost gingerbread men now. “I know he’s probably busy—”

“Not too busy to see a friend,” Yennefer says, waving him inside. “Come on.”

Words sit heavy on Jaskier’s tongue— _ I don’t know if he’d consider me a friend _ —but he swallows them down and steps inside. There’s noise coming from the kitchen. Yennefer’s dress swishes delicately around her legs as they walk, but Jaskier’s just in jeans and a sweater, and he hopes a little desperately that Geralt’s not dressed yet.

Alas, he has no such luck. Geralt is making tea in the kitchen with a real, old-fashioned kettle, but no sooner has Jaskier noticed this than he’s lost all higher function. Geralt is dressed in charcoal slacks with a crisp white button-down, topped off by a sweet red sweater vest. He even has a red and green plaid bowtie fastened around his neck, although as Jaskier watches he tugs uncomfortably at it. Over the back of one of the kitchen chairs is slung a suit jacket of the same charcoal material as the slacks. His feet are clad only in socks, dark green and looking too thin to provide much comfort.

“Geralt,” Yennefer says. “Your lovely little friend is back again.”

His white-maned head moves a little too fast, and Jaskier watches Geralt’s wide shoulders sag with obvious relief. He even smiles again, and it knocks Jaskier so far off of his feet that he barely remembers to offer a smile of his own.

“You look nice,” he says.

“Hmm?” Geralt looks down at his outfit and shrugs. “It’s...fancier than what I’m used to.”

“Well, that’s not hard to do. It’s fancy even by my fully socially incorporated standards.”

Geralt’s mouth quirks. “I told Yennefer I didn’t need a suit. She insisted.”

“I’m glad she did.” Jaskier looks him up and down completely appropriately and nods. “You look really good.”

“Thank you. Are you wearing that?”

“Absolutely not.” Jaskier laughs. “Oh, my parents would kill me if I even tried. We’ll be dressing up, color-coordinated and everything.”

“I’m sure you’ll look nice,” Geralt says. Jaskier barely resists the urge to duck his head, flustered.

“I definitely won’t,” he says. “But I appreciate it anyways.”

Geralt turns away from the stove where he’s left the kettle, crossing his bulging arms over his chest. Jaskier’s bisexual heart skips several beats, especially when he catches sight of the beautiful veins on the back of Geralt’s hands. The charcoal of his suit and the white of his shirt only serves to accentuate his beautiful hair, tied back in the same half-up style as the day before, and Jaskeir wants a little desperately to touch it.

_ Control yourself, Jaskier, _ he thinks, and summons thoughts of pawpaw pole dancing in a neon pink speedo to quicken the process.

Yennefer has vanished, maybe to get her hair done or maybe just to do mayorly things, and has thus left Jaskier and Geralt alone. It’s not a great help, what with Jaskier’s admittedly ill-advised crush on a man about seven times his age.

“Are you here to hide from the coordinated outfits?” Geralt asks.

“From decorating gingerbread men, actually.” Jaskier’s own hands are crammed into his pockets, but he manages to shrug a little awkwardly. “No, I figured—Oh, it’s kind of stupid now that I’m here.”

Geralt frowns. “I’m sure it’s not.”

“I just thought you might be nervous about tonight,” Jaskier says. “If you were in need of a pep talk or just someone to vent to… But, you know, Yennefer is perfectly capable of psyching you up for tonight.”

“No,” Geralt says. Jaskier spares a glance up at him and his wet-gold eyes, set between furrowed brows. “I’m glad you’re here. She’s…”

“Intimidating?” Jaskier suggests.

Geralt puffs out a breathy laugh, his face scrunching up in the prettiest fashion Jaskier’s ever seen. “Yes. Intimidating.”

“So do you need a pep talk?”

“I…” The amusement on Geralt’s face wanes. “I’m—Yeah, I’m nervous.”

“I would be more concerned if you weren’t.” Outside the windows, a few scattered snowflakes are meandering their way downwards. “Why are you nervous?”

Geralt raises his eyebrows.

“Okay, okay, stupid question.” Jaskier laughs. He sits down at one of the kitchen chairs and Geralt follows suit, his body looking too big for the antique frame. “You know, on my way here I overheard a lot of conversations, a lot of them about your role as the Holiday Cheermeister, and not one of them was negative. A few were ambivalent, and plenty were good, but before even meeting you there was no one outwardly campaigning that you be sent back up the mountain.”

“That’s…” Geralt nods. “...good.”

“It is!” Jaskier reassures him. “Just be your charming self and you’ll have won everyone over by the end of the night.”

Geralt scoffs. “Don’t know how to charm.”

“You’ve got natural charm,” Jaskier assures him. “Even when you were all stinky and pointing a sword at me.”

The critical expression melts into a grimace. “Sorry. About the sword thing.”

“Oh, I knew you weren’t actually going to hurt me.” Jaskier waves a hand and rolls his eyes. “Not after you acted so sweet when you thought I was too out of it to remember.”

There’s no denial this time; Geralt ducks his head and scuffs a foot on the floor in an endearingly childish manner.

“You know, as the one who did most of the work to get you down here, I know I’m going to be getting plenty of attention tonight. I’ll be telling that story every chance I get. Unless you’d really rather I not?”

“I…”

“It’s terribly mushy,” Jaskier says, agreeing with the point that he knows Geralt can’t bring himself to vocalize, “but that’s the point. There’ll be mothers and grandmothers lining up to pinch your cheeks before the evening is out, and that bodes well for you.”

“I don’t want anyone touching me,” Geralt grumbles, still staring at the floor.

It’s only then that Jaskier realizes that his legs are touching Geralt’s, intertwined like they’d stalled out playing footsie. He feels his face blush as he goes to draw his feet backwards, but is stopped by Geralt squeezing his legs together to trap one of Jaskier’s feet.

“No,” Geralt blurts, “not—You’re fine. Anyone  _ else.” _

It takes Jaskier, whose ears are probably hot enough to cook with by now, a few moments to realize just what Geralt’s said. When he does, he squeaks and his face goes just a little redder.

“Right,” he says. “Right.”

“You’re…” Geralt looks like he’s trying to find the words. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

“Of course not.”

Geralt nods. “Yeah. I can’t say that about anyone else.”

“Would it help if I were near you tonight?” Jaskier asks.

Geralt considers this, and then shakes his head. “No. Your—Spreading the story sounds good. Less chance I have to leave.”

“Alright then.” Jaskier glances at a ticking clock hung above the fridge and sighs. “If I don’t get back soon my mother’s going to send Essi after me, and it’s not going to be pretty.”

“Don’t let me get in the way, then.”

Jaskier does his best not to frown when Geralt releases his foot. He’d really like to stay here, sitting at Yennefer’s kitchen table and chatting idly like friends, but he has a—no doubt terribly ugly—outfit to cram himself into and Geralt has Holiday Cheermeister duties to prepare for.

That doesn’t stop him from casting a pitiful glance over his shoulder as he leaves Yennefer’s house behind.

“There you are!” his mother demands when he makes it back home and walks right into a veritable wall of spiced air. “I was wondering where you were.”

“Sorry, mom.”

The gingerbread duties are done and so Essi and his mother are already dressed in their matching outfits. This year it’s red dresses, with three-quarter length sleeves and puffy skirts pinched as just the right place to emphasize their curves. Beneath the top layer of red silk, a hint of a barely-longer green underlayer is visible. They each wear green kitten heels and headbands to tie the outfit together, and Essi’s nails have been painted green since last night.

“Your outfit is on your bed, dear, please don’t take too long. We have to deliver some gingerbread to Valdo’s great-grandfather before we make our way to the pre-party at the Ibsen’s, and you know how they are about punctuality.”

“Yes, mom.”

His outfit, to his great surprise, isn’t bad. It’s a simple forest-green suit, with a handkerchief bearing a red and green plaid print. Really, he’s almost Geralt’s invert, and the thought is enough to make him chuckle as he focuses on tucking his shirt properly into the neatly-cut slacks.

He’s barely got the time to set a foot downstairs before gingerbread is being shoved into his hands and he’s being corralled out the door into the crisp winter air. The great honor of carrying the container with pawpaw’s gingerbread has been bestowed upon him this year; he cradles it gently.

Valdo’s family is ready to go by the time they get there, bar Valdo’s grandfather who will be staying behind to make sure pawpaw is taken care of. They’ll have gingerbread to tide them over, at least, and Jaskier just shuffles his feet on the welcome mat before being ushered to pawpaw’s room.

“There you are!” Pawpaw beams at him when he steps inside. There’s gentle Christmas music playing from the television, but pawpaw is reading. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“I brought gingerbread,” Jaskier deflects, and sets the gingerbread down next to pawpaw on the bed. “And it—Really, it wasn’t much.”

Pawpaw reaches up and takes Jaskier’s hands between his own trembling ones, tears shining in his dark eyes. He looks about ready to get up from the bed and start dancing. The attention is deeply uncomfortable, but he sucks it up; no doubt he’ll have more uncomfortable attention to weather tonight.

“You did what my father only wished he could have,” pawpaw whispers. For such an old man, his grip is strong. “He would be overjoyed, if he were here with us today.”

“I know he would be. I’m just glad that it’s done, and that the people are finally seeing Geralt for who he is instead of what his mother did to him.”

“It’s done,” pawpaw agrees in a whisper.

“Come on, we’ve got to go!” someone shouts from the front of the house.

“I’ll let you two go.” Pawpaw releases Jaskier’s hands so he can step back to where Valdo is loitering by the door with a soft expression. “Have fun.”

“Merry Christmas,” Jaskier says.

Pawpaw smiles. “Merry Christmas.”

Valdo’s grandfather sends him a fond nod as the two families leave. The streets are crowded, everyone already dressed up and on their way to so-and-so’s house for Jubilation pregaming. Jaskier links one arm through Valdo’s and the other through Essi’s, the three of them giddy with the mood of pure festive joy that has saturated Lettenhove’s air. There are lights strung between buildings, draped in a plethora of wreaths, and their spiced pine scent drifts downwards to tickle his nose past all the other scents of Christmasey goods.

Priscilla’s place looms before them to strip them of their cheer. The cold creeps through his clothing to chill his skin, and a knot forms in his stomach. He wants so desperately to win Priscilla over to his side; it’s just not fun being part of a trio. Beyond that, he feels like it would mean a lot to Geralt to have all four of those who climbed the mountain lose their fear of him.

“I hope she’s not still mad,” Jaskier mutters.

“Mad about Geralt being the Holiday Cheermeister?”

“Mhmm.”

“I did wonder why you only brought Essi and I to go see Geralt,” Valdo muses. “I’ll see if I can talk to her, Jask.”

“Would you?” He sighs. “I just don’t want to go through Christmas with her hating me, but she’s—Well, she’s herself. Stubborn as a mule.”

It’s Priscilla’s mother who opens the door. She’s dressed in an outfit that looks like a massive peppermint come to life, short-skirted with ruffles beneath but covered in swirling bright red and pure white stripes. Her hair is styled in excessive curls, all organized to frame a fake peppermint half the size of her head.

“Hi!” she squeals, reaching out to pull Jaskier’s mother inside by the wrist. “Oh, it’s so good to see you guys! Come in, come in!”

The apartment is bustling, packed with enough people that it more resembles a can of sardines than a home. Christmas music is playing so loudly that it’s hard to hear himself think, and the scent of freshly-baked cookies has Jaskier’s mouth watering. Although he’s already started to sweat, the environment is familiar and comfortable. The only thing that’s making him squirrely is—

Ah, there Priscilla is. She’s standing in the door to the kitchen, eggnog in hand as staring solemnly at them. Her family doesn’t do matching outfits, so she’s just in a long, sleek, green dress. It flatters her figure, he has to admit.

“Where’s Pris—Oh, Prissy, there you are! Your friends are here!”

Priscilla navigates her way through the crowd to approach them, pinching her lips together in an awkward facsimile of a smile. “Hi,” she says. She almost has to shout to be heard over the music.

“Hey,” Valdo says.

“It’s quieter in my room,” she says. They’re relatively alone in the entryway, the parents having vanished into the crowd. “If you even want to hang out, that is.”

Valdo sighs. “Pris, don’t be like this. We can talk in your room, if you’re comfortable with that.”

Priscilla leads them down the hallway, and Jaskier can’t help but feel like they're walking into an ambush of some kind, nevermind the fact that they outnumber Priscilla three to one. Her room is small, but it’s quieter than the rest of the apartment and there’s enough room for the four of them. Essi takes her desk seat when Priscilla sits down on her bed, leaving Jaskier and Valdo to stand.

“So,” Priscilla says.

“So,” Essi counters in much the same tone.

“Why don’t you explain what’s going on?” Valdo asks.

“What’s going on is that Jaskier thought it was a good idea to bring the Wolf down from the mountain,” Priscilla snaps, testy. “Okay, cool, so he didn’t kill him, but he’s spent over a hundred years on that mountain all alone. He’s got to be at least a little mad, and it’s stupid that none of you seem to care.”

“He’s not mad,” Valdo sighs. “Essi and I have spoken with him; he’s odd from not socializing in so long, sure, but he’s not dangerous. At least, not if he’s not threatened, I’m sure.”

“He was  _ shy,” _ Essi says. “Of course he was a little weird, but anyone would be.”

“I just think it’s rude of you to assume that he’s violent or unhinged without giving him a chance,” Jaskier says, no longer able to keep his mouth shut. “Why don’t you trust me? I’m the one who’s spent more time with him than anyone else.”

“A normal human would be dead,” Valdo points out with more gentleness than Jaskier could muster. “Can’t you take the chance that his mind is better than an average human’s, too?”

Priscilla looks annoyed, but she grits her teeth and says, “Well, he  _ is  _ the Holiday Cheermeister. I don’t have much choice but to at least tolerate him.”

The room falls painfully silent. Although it’s cooler here, Jaskier wants desperately to wade through the throng of people here to find his parents just to get away from Priscilla. Actually, he wants Geralt, but they’re on opposite sides of the town and he knows that there’s a lot of prep still ongoing for the Jubilation festivities.

Eventually they do disperse. Jaskier sticks by Valdo, who’s dressed handsomely in dark green slacks that are almost black and a burgundy turtleneck. They go for eggnog together and Jaskier makes himself as small as possible as Valdo sprinkles cinnamon atop his drink. Jaskier still ends up having to move at least three times, nevermind how closely he tries to press himself against the cabinets.

“Are there more people here than usual?” Jaskier asks him when they’ve made their way from the kitchen. The speaker’s in there, and it’s impossible to hear the person next to you even if they’re shouting.

“There might be,” Valdo agrees, grimacing when someone backs into him and almost spills his drink. Jaskier has his own clutched very close to his chest.

“How long until we can leave?” he mutters. “I need some fresh air, but if I go out I’m not coming back in.”

Valdo snorts. “It shouldn’t be long.”

True to word, it isn’t too long before Essi has found Jaskier and is dragging him towards the door where their parents are waiting. The cold air outside is refreshing, and he sucks in deep breaths as they walk farther and farther from Priscilla. He can only hope that she’ll have come around by the end of the night.

“I’m excited to see the tastings,” Essi giggles.

“Anything that puts real food in him is something I’m on board with,” Jaskier says. “Honestly, I don’t know when the last time he ate real food was.”

As gatherings disperse and people begin to make their way towards the center of town, the streets grow slowly more crowded. Jaskier wants to be near the front for this, and so does his family.

“Are you nervous?” Essi asks as people from all over Lettenhove flood the square. She’s crushing his fingers between hers.

“So nervous,” he confesses.

“But you got him the role of Cheermeister,” she whispers warmly, jostling him. “He’s safe for tonight.”

Jaskier waits on tenterhooks as the square fills, and at long, long last Yennefer steps up to the microphone. Her hair has been left down. She still looks better than anyone else in the crowd without a doubt.

“As always,” she says, “we start our evening with the announcement of our town’s most revered roles: Holiday Cheermeister.”

A soft cheer goes up from the crowd.

“This year will be a little different than those of recent memory. May I introduce you to Lettenhove’s Holiday Cheermeister, Geralt Rivia.”

The applause isn’t as riotous as it could be, but Jaskier doesn’t hear any booing as Geralt makes his way onto the stage to stand next to Yennefer. His shoulders are tense, arms stiff by his side, but he makes an effort to turn his lips into a smile. With his too-sharp teeth, smiling fully would be a bad idea and he definitely knows it. His pupils are so slitted that they’re nearly invisible. Jaskier has a terrible thought that this has been a mistake; Geralt looks about ready to split and race back up the mountain.

But then his eyes find Jaskier’s in the crowd, and Jaskier watches his posture soften with just a mouthed  _ Breathe. _

“It is my greatest honor to reintroduce Geralt to you after so long,” Yennefer continues. “He’s had quite the journey, so it’s only fitting that he be welcomed back with the warmest embrace we can offer.” She turns to him and sets a gentle hand on his arm, smiling directly into his face. Jaskier doesn’t think she notices the way that he tenses back up, and fights the urge to leap onto the stage and pull her hand from him. “Welcome home, Geralt.”

“Thank you,” Geralt rumbles, and Jaskier hears a woman nearby sigh dreamily. He grits his teeth. It’s fine, he’s fine, there’s nothing wrong. “It’s good to be back.”

There’s a wave of hoots and hollers as the gaudy Chair of Cheer is carried out, and Geralt eyes it warily. But he climbs into it even as he shrinks from helping hands, and Jaskier watches with a twisted stomach as the chair-bearers hoist him up. Geralt grips the arms of the chair with so much force that Jaskier thinks he sees the wood splinter just a little.

The tastings go...surprisingly well. He’s thankful that they’ve changed the way it used to work, where nearly anyone could offer their goods directly to the Cheermeister; now it’s narrowed down to the final three before the Jubilation festivities, and just those are presented. So Geralt takes a bite of three different puddings and crowns Triss Merigold, tries three different fruitcakes and crowns Regis Godefroy, tastes three different fudges and crowns Calanthe Riannon. He actually looks fairly content by the time the tastings are over, which is a welcome change from how terribly tense he’d been before.

But Jaskier only partially pays attention to the tastings. While the crowds gather to see which bakers Geralt will bestow bragging rights upon, Jaskier meanders through the ever-shifting crowd and engages anyone who even glances his way in aggressively polite conversation. He gently draws them to the subject of Geralt, specifically, and then—as loudly as he dares without making it obvious that he’s trying to get as many people as possible to hear him—recites the story of Geralt first comforting him. In this way he melts the heart of many a kindly aunt-like figure.

Essi, bless her, makes her own way through the crowd. She doesn’t draw as much attention as Jaskier because she wasn’t the one to “survive” Geralt, but a swayed citizen is a swayed citizen no matter who did the swaying. Then those swayed citizens, swooning over such a sweet story, talk to other citizens and further spread the story. He thinks briefly that he should go into marketing.

When the tastings are done they fall into a massive conga line, and it’s only when the call goes out that Jaskier recalls Geralt’s discomfort with being touched. He grimaces and wonders whose hands Geralt will have to suffer as he falls in line between all sorts of people whose names he doesn’t know. At some point, pinched between a very boney gentleman and a woman with excessive amounts of rear end, he catches a glimpse of the front of the line. It’s Yennefer with her hands on Geralt’s hips, which is possibly the best possible outcome here except for having Jaskier himself behind Geralt.

Then there’s the sack race, which is often just children and the Cheermeister, and Jaskier hopes that children and their oft-invasive questions don’t set Geralt off. He’s done so well, and it would hurt to see him pushed too far by a bunch of kids who don’t even fully understand what’s at stake.

He knows what’s at stake, though, so he gets in another conversation about how good Geralt is while he hops obediently towards the finish line in a giant sack and gets his butt kicked by a bunch of six-year-olds. All the while Geralt just looks genteelly amused, but there’s a flush to his cheeks and a light in his eyes visible even from where Jaskier’s standing a good distance away. He’s—He’s  _ having a good time. _ He’s just hiding his teeth.

At the end of the sack race, which a little boy named Dara wins, Geralt is all but tackled by Calanthe’s infamous, spitfire of a granddaughter when she trips over the finish line. They both hit the ground, but Geralt does nothing more than grab her by the armpits and put her back on her red-clogged feet. The girl—Cirilla, Jaskier thinks?—giggles and reaches out to tug gently on a lock of Geralt’s hair, and then points to her own with a brilliant smile. Geralt nods solemnly like she’s imparting grave wisdom and doesn’t look away from her as he kicks his legs out of the sack. Jaskier swears he feels his heart melt, and listens to the gushy sighs of all the women in Lettenhove over the age of twenty-five.

Maybe he should’ve been focusing on engaging the men in conversation this whole time.

By the time the gift exchange rolls around some time later, Jaskier’s almost entirely forgotten to be nervous. Everything is going really, surprisingly well. He hasn’t heard a single bad word all night, and Geralt has been just as charming as Jaskier knew he could be. He’s handling himself.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise when, as everyone’s lining up in a massive loop that winds through several of Lettenhove’s streets, Yennefer beckons him to the stage with her and Geralt. He makes his way up as requested; you don’t refuse a request from her, even if she’s smiling. At least the attention of the whole town isn’t on him as he squeezes between several important town board members to reach Yennefer and Geralt.

“Where’s your family?” Yennefer asks. “I want you to start.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, so stunned that he can barely speak. “Yeah, uh—” He turns around and spots his family, thankfully lingering near the stage. His mother’s hair is losing its integrity. “Guys, come on up!”

He attaches himself to Geralt’s right side before Essi can make any kind of move, and she rolls her eyes but attaches herself to his right. Then there’s their father, and then their mother, and then some other inhabitant of Lettenhove. Jaskier doesn’t really know or care who it is, not when Geralt’s radiating warmth from so close.

“How’s your evening been?” he asks. The sky has grown dark since the last spoke, and the Christmas lights give the entire town an enchanting feel.

“Good,” Geralt says. “Yeah, it’s… It’s actually good.”

“Of course it is.” Jaskier bumps him gently with his elbow, nearly giddy. “I told you so.”

“They—” Geralt hums and looks around the square. There are a few snowflakes falling intermittently, and the towering Christmas tree shines like a star of its own. Just looking at it makes Jaskier feel a little warmer. “They don’t smell bad.”

“Uh, I would hope not.” Jaskier sends him a quizzical look, half-smiling. “We do bathe semi-regularly here, I’d hope.”

“No, not—” Geralt snorts, lips twitching. “I have weird senses. I can smell bloodlust, and fear, and other things. But they don’t smell scared.”

“Why would they? I have to say that the sack race was cute—what did Cirilla say to you?”

“She…said we had the same hair.”

“You do,” Jaskier points out.

“Didn’t as a kid. But…” Geralt shakes his head, still smiling, although it has a sad tint to it. “I don’t remember the last time people didn’t smell afraid of me.”

“I don’t think that that’s going to be a problem again,” Jaskier says.

“I hope not.”

The man on Yennefer’s left leans in and mutters something to her, probably a notice that the line is complete and the gift-giving can begin. His suspicion is confirmed when Yennefer raises her voice and calls that it’s time for the annual gift-giving to begin. Jaskier fishes his gift out of an inner pocket of his jacket with a trembling hand; the giving of the first gift is a great honor, and he can hardly believe that the honor is his this year. It’s just a gift card, the box small and flat, but Essi takes it like it holds something precious.

“Merry Christmas,” he says, smiling.

Her cheeks are apple-red and flushed, eyes sparkling. “Merry Christmas.” She turns away and hands her gift to their father. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

And around it goes, one long wave of good Christmas spirit. It’s only when the gift-giving has disappeared from view, having curved onto one of the side streets, that Jaskier notices there’s anything wrong. He’s still riding the high of being the first gift-giver. Geralt, though, is shifting minutely back and forth with a tense set to his shoulders.

“Geralt?” Jaskier murmurs. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have a gift,” Geralt mutters back.

Well, Jaskier’s not sure how that happened, but it’s definitely a problem. “Oh. Uh… Do you have a watch? Something small on you that you can repurpose?”

“No.”

The gift-giving picks up speed as the rhythm falls into place, and Jaskier feels his pulse skyrocket when it comes back to the square. It won’t be long now until it will reach Geralt.

“Breathe,” Jaskier mutters, although the advice applies to both of them. “It’s okay. Does Yennefer have anything on her?”

“Nothing, her wrists are bare and she has no pockets.”

Jaskier glances down the line to his right. Even a borrowed pair of gloves would do, but no one in his family is wearing any. The panicked churning in his stomach is rising to batter his lungs, and he breathes through the discomfort. It won’t be the end of their efforts if Geralt is without a gift, right?

Right?

Jaskier swoons as the gift-giving makes its way onto the stage, but manages to catch his balance before he topples over. He might be sweating. His entire body seems to have gone numb, though, so he’s not sure.

Time moves in slow motion as Yennefer accepts the gift from the man on her left and then turns to offer Geralt her own gift. Her teeth glimmer with the Christmas lights, and he swears nonsensically that he can see the reflection of the tree in them. There’s one strand of hair that’s defied her will to curl away from its kin and rest against her cheek.

Geralt takes the gift. He turns to Jaskier. His lips are pinched flat, his eyes wide but set between determinedly slanted eyebrows. Jaskier’s fairly positive that he’s going to pass out and it’s not even his shame.

Geralt hugs him.

For all that Jaskier isn’t small, he feels as such in Geralt’s arms, tucked against his broad chest. He’s warm—warmer than he’d been on the mountain, anyway, barely clothed and without much fire—and the way his chest presses against Jaskier’s with every breath causes Jaskier’s to come short. His hair smells nice. It’s soft, too, where it falls ticklishly across the front of Jaskier’s face. His heartbeat is slow and steady, guiding Jaskier’s own heartbeat into a more sustainable rhythm.

It’s so nice that Jaskier almost forgets to hug back.

He does eventually, coming back to himself as a wave of adoring coos sweep through the line. He grips the back of Geralt’s shoulders and clings as tightly as he dares. Is there a humiliating aspect of so many people watching this hug? Certainly. But he can’t be bothered to care too much when Geralt’s really, actually hugging him.

“This counts as a gift, right?” Geralt mumbles into Jaskier’s neck.

Jaskier laughs and holds tighter when he realizes that Geralt’s in the process of melting into him. This has to be his first hug in over a century; Jaskier will be damned if he's not going to make it a good one.

“It does. And it’s a great gift, too.”

A great cheer goes up from the crowd when Geralt drags himself away from the embrace. The gift-giving is over, and with it the Jubilation festivities. All that’s left to do now is go home and set out milk and cookies. The line falls apart as families begin to either chat with other families or make their way home, but Jaskier can’t bring himself to leave Geralt’s side. He kind of wants to hug Geralt until a full century of deprivation has been made up for, but that’ll take far longer than either of them has time for. He makes do with keeping a hand on Geralt’s forearm.

“I’m Jaskier’s mother,” his mother says boldly, crowding nearly too far into Geralt’s personal space. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too,” Geralt says. “Thank you for the cocoa.”

His mother scoffs. “Oh, of course!”

“I’m selfishly glad that you raised Jaskier so well,” Geralt says. Jaskier’s heart does an enthusiastic little shimmy in his chest. “It’s thanks to him that I’m here.”

“I don’t know where he got his heart from,” his mother confesses with a laugh, “but I’m glad he’s got it.”

“Me too.”

“Look, mom,” Essi says, grabbing their mother by the hand to drag her away. “Mrs. Marx wants to talk to you.”

Mrs. Marx is, in fact, nowhere in sight, but their mother can be terribly overbearing and shouldn’t be allowed to talk to Geralt for more than a few moments, likely ever. Jaskier sends Essi a brief, thankful nod as she leads their mother away. He’s sure that Geralt doesn’t want to talk to anyone after such an eventful evening, much less someone like his mother.

The crowd is dispersing quicker than it does some years. Geralt loiters on the stage with Yennefer and Jaskier; it’s not as if he has family. Regardless, it’s for this reason that the stage is empty enough for Priscilla to make her way towards it with twisting hands. Jaskier feels his stomach drop.

“Er, hello,” she says when she reaches them. Jaskier watches Yennefer cast her a curious glance without breaking from her conversation. “I’m—My name is Priscilla.”

Geralt gingerly takes the hand that she thrusts out and offers a single gentle shake before releasing it. “Hello.”

“She’s—the other one from the mountain-climbing group,” Jaskier says awkwardly.

“Ah,” Geralt says.

“I’m sorry,” Priscilla says, chin held high. “I was being stubborn and didn’t want to admit that I—that we  _ all _ —could have been so wrong about you.”

“Well,” Geralt says, and shrugs. “It’s all in the past now, hopefully.”

“They loved you,” Jaskier insists. “You’re fine, Geralt.”

“Excuse me for not wanting to get my hopes up,” Geralt grumbles.

Priscilla glances between the two of them as she shifts on her feet. “I just—That’s all I wanted to say. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Jaskier says, heady relief rushing through him like so much adrenaline.

“Merry Christmas,” Geralt tries, but his reply is halting and a little late for Priscilla to hear it. Still, it’s an effort.

The square is almost empty by now, bar Jaskier’s family loitering by the Christmas tree and doing a bad job at pretending that they’re not staring. His attention is drawn back to the man beside him when Geralt lets out a low, gusty breath.

“Don’t want to talk to anyone for a week,” he mumbles. “Don’t even want to  _ look  _ at anyone. Gosh.”

Jaskier laughs. “You did good,” he says. “That’ll be the most taxing thing you’ll have to do for a very long time, I promise you.”

Geralt casts him a suspicious side-eye. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

With a gentle scoff, Geralt turns fully to face him and offers a real, full smile, too-sharp teeth and all. It’s not frightening. If anything, it’s almost a comfort.

“I believe that you believe that,” he says.

Jaskier bursts into laughter loud enough that Yennefer’s conversation temporarily stalls, and then leans forward to wrap Geralt in as tight of a hug as he can manage. He has to stand on his toes just a little to hook his chin over Geralt’s shoulder, but it’s no hardship, especially when Geralt leans into the touch like an overeager puppy. The air around them is just cold enough to be refreshing, but Geralt is so warm and his hands are terribly gentle where they hover just over Jaskier’s back. It makes Jaskier want to laugh again.

“Merry Christmas, Geralt.”

He doesn’t have to look to feel the smile pressed into his neck. “Merry Christmas, Jaskier.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing this! It came out in a Christmas haze over, like, a two-week period. I entirely blame Jim Carrey. Feel free to drop kudos or comments if you enjoyed it; every one is like a little gift!
> 
> Also, here's the link to my inspiration for Yennefer's Jubilation dress (if it works): https://sc02.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1rrohfDnI8KJjy0Ffq6AdoVXaF.jpg_350x350.jpg


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